Question 3
In what ways did ww1 help to change the employment opportunities in Britain?
Before the war job opportunities for women were scarce and the only jobs available were very lowly paid. An average maid or cleaner would make about £5-10 a year, some even less. Most jobs that women were employed in would include: maids, cleaners, jobs in the textiles industry and a few of the luckier ones would be employed as secretaries or shop till ladies at shops. Some older women with experience of looking after children would be employed by wealthy families as nannies to look after there children. Men’s attitudes to women working were that they only had the skills required to work in jobs that needed minor intelligence and skills. Statistics taken estimate that before the war the number of women in paid employment was about 2.5% to 10% of men.
During the war job opportunities for women started increasing as men left to go fight in the war. Jobs that were known as men‘s jobs, had no men to full them, this meant the government were left with a problem. During this time women’s rights campaigners such as Emeline and Christina Pankhurst saw an opportunity for women to help in the war effort so they started campaigning heavily for women’s right to help in the war campaign, at the beginning of the campaign it seemed they were protesting to deaf ears until the government saw the usefulness of women prepared to work for lower wages and work a lot harder. In a way the government was using the women, but it didn’t matter to women as long as they were getting an opportunity to prove themselves, this really showed that the men still believed women could not do a good job but were forced to accept them During the great shell shortage however the government were forced to turn to women, this was there first real opportunity. The trade unions did not like women going into work in “men’s jobs” but the need for workers was to great to be petty about it, they did however foresee a problem when all the men came home which was, what would they do when there were no jobs left, this forced the government to sign an agreement that meant women would have to give up there jobs when men came home if there was a man to fill the place. The government also gave Mrs Pankhurst £3000 to organise the women’s war register, were women could apply for jobs, and the ’Women to do work campaign in which propaganda was designed to make women feel guilty if they weren’t working, which was quite ironic as before this time the government and trade unions didn’t want women working. After the war register was established over 100,000 women applied although only 5000 were initially accepted, this took the ratio of women to men working up to 5% of women in paid employment to every 10% of men.
