The Changing Role & Status of Women
Question 1 – Describe the employment opportunities of women in Britain in 1914 at the outbreak of war.
At the outbreak of WWI, women’s working opportunities were limited. Fewer than 5.9 million women out of a population of 23.7 million females were employed in working conditions. The most common form of employment for a woman was as a domestic servant – around 1.5 million women worked in this area. Around 900,000 women worked in the textiles industry, and another 500,000 in the ‘sweated trades’. This was the term for areas of employment involving hard, long hours of work and unsanitary conditions. Women were usually paid around two thirds of a man’s average wage – often less than this. They were rarely given promotion above their male co-workers.
