male by female
labour. But the movement is by no means peculiar to the textile and
dress industries which may appear specially adapted to the faculties
of women. Wherever women have got a firm footing in a manufacture a
similar movement is traceable; the relative rate of increase in the
employment of women exceeds that of men, even where the numbers of the
latter do not show an absolute decline. Such industries are wood
furniture and carriages; printing and bookbinding; paper, floorcloths,
waterproof; feathers, leather, glues; food, drink, smoking;
earthenware, machinery, tools.[241] Women have also obtained
employment in connection with other industries which are still in the
main "male" industries, and in which no women, or very few, were
engaged in 1841. Such are fuel, gas, chemicals; watches, instruments,
toys. The only group of machine industries in which their numbers have
not increased more rapidly than those of men since 1851 are the metal
industries. Over some of these, however, they are obtaining an
increased hold. In the "more mechanical portions" of the growing
"cycle" industry, hollow-ware, and in certain departments of the
watchmaking trade, they are ousting male labour, executing with
machinery the work formerly done by male hand-workers.[242]

From this and similar evidence relating to the statistics of
employment in modern industrial countries, the following conclusions
seem justified:--

(1.) That the tendency of modern industry is to increase the quantity
of wage-work given to women as compared with that given to men.

In qualification of this tendency consideration should be taken of the
greater irregularity of women's work, and of the fact that a large
number of women returned as industrial workers give only a portion of
their working-day to industry.

(2.) That this tendency is specially operative in manufacturing
industries. The increase of female employment in the "dealing"
industries and in "industrial service" is not larger than the increase
of male employment between 1851 and 1881.

(3.) That in the manufacturing industries, omitting a few essentially
male industries where even under machinery the muscles are severely
taxed, the increased rate of female employment is greatest in those
industries where machinery has been most highly developed, as for
example in the textile industries and dress.

Out of 1,840,898 women placed in the industrial class in 1891 no fewer
than 1,319,441 were e