The Economic Position of Home-keeping Women

The home is a place of consumption; it is not the center of production but productive activities still go on there. They do not consist to the same degree as formerly in the creation of form utilities. Housekeeping women can no longer be classed occupationally with farmers and manufacturers; instead their activities are analogous to those of middlemen and those who render services. The increase in the relative importance of activities such as these is an outstanding feature of our society.

Not only is household production today concentrated to a high degree in the hands of women; it is concentrated also in the hands of married women. Unmarried women are more and more entering gainful employment. Their share in household production as the share of men is becoming less and less.

In many ways the economic status of the women engaged in household production is a curious anomaly. Although they are engaged in the same type of production as has occupied their time through the ages they find themselves today presenting a marked contrast to other productive workers. Their economic position is unique in the modern economic world. Their activities are the byproduct of marriage. The choice of a certain conjugal state means the assumption of certain tasks which are largely the same for all women regardless of differences in inclination, aptitudes, training, or experience. If their tasks vary, they vary with the financial position of the husband and the place of abode and not with the capacities and interests of the wife. A trained nurse who marries a farmer has the same allotment of jobs as the stenographer or cook or lawyer who marries one. It is status not competition that places workers in this field. As these workers are not hired, neither are they fired for inefficiency or incapacity. There is no promotion. The wife who is inefficient as a household worker and manager may find herself elevated to a state of affluence through the earning power of her husband and the efficient household manager may find herself in a state of poverty through the financial incapacity or misfortune of her husband. In other words, here are workers for whom all economic laws based on the assumption of free competition fail. It is the money-making power of the men they marry that determines whether they have the place and privileges of the rich or the limitations of the poor. Their own rating as productive workers has little to do with it. As will be seen later, the financial value of their services can not be estimated and even if it could the figure would have significance only for certain limited purposes. In a world engaged in creating exchange values they are creating use values.

Curious results of the peculiar economic position of home-keeping women are always presenting themselves. For example, in recent discussions of the inadequacy of the income of the teaching profession it appeared that men in the lower ranks could afford to hire very little or no household assistance. As a result their wives were forced either to earn or to cook, to clean, to care for children, to carry on all the tasks of a household. To this group of women and their husbands this situation seemed far from satisfactory. In engaging in these labors they were violating the standards of their class; they were performing "menial" tasks inappropriate for persons in their position. Traditionally in the professional class, in the upper middle class in general, a certain amount of domestic service is considered essential for a well-ordered household. The approved standard of living can not be maintained without it. The wife is to engage in "ladylike pursuits," be free for her duties as the "lady of the house," and is to assume only the responsibilities of management with reference to her household and children. The tenability of this expectation may be open to discussion. The fact remains that women with this standard are forced if they marry a man with an income below a certain level either to supplement it by outside earning or to perform distasteful tasks. Furthermore, when they undertake household operation they are probably doing work quite unlike that they would be doing if they remained unmarried. As was said household production is of a highly diversified character, some of its activities require judgment and information equal to the demands of a profession, and others are of a routine, manual character.

To some what is called the economic dependence of the wife, the fact that she herself earns no money income, that her share must come from her husband, seems an intolerable situation. The problem of control of the purse to which it gives rise will be discussed in Chapter X. Here it is noted simply as one aspect of the economic position of women home-makers. Their economic status is, as was said, in striking contrast with that of other economic agents. Shall it be called undesirable for that reason? Many criticisms are made of our acquisitive, competitive society. Some strongly favor its abandonment and the substitution of other arrangements with different incentives and different rewards. Here is a group producing for use and not for profit; whose incentive to efficiency and effort is not financial reward; whose returns are largely the health and happiness of others. Is their economic position necessarily undesirable on that account?

Source: Economic Problems of the Family