INFLUENCE OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 349 



emancipation of women from economic dependence upon man. 

 What are the racial effects of this movement is a question which 

 has naturally attracted much attention and elicited much dis- 

 cussion. A solution of the question involves a number of sub- 

 sidiary enquiries as to the effect of the changing industrial status 

 of women upon the marriage rate, death rate and fecundity of the 

 different hereditary classes of their sex. 



Among women, as among men, those engaged in skilled labor 

 or in professions marry later than those in ordinary employment. 

 In Prussia, according to Prinzing, the average age of marriage is 

 low among factor}^ workers (24.6-25.5) and cigar makers (23.5), 

 a little higher among shop girls (25.8), seamstresses (26) and 

 waitresses (24), and higher still among teachers (29). The 

 English textile worker marries before the shop girl, and the latter 

 before the trained employee. The higher the status the less 

 frequent also are the marriages. The development of industry by 

 creating opportunities for an independent career for women 

 tends to induce the more capable to enter upon those pursuits in 

 which we find a low marriage rate. The proportion of married 

 women is usually greater in the country, where only a relatively 

 small number of women are working for wages than it is in cities. 

 The stream of cityward migration is frequently composed of 

 more women than men. 



The influence of the industrial mill upon the physique of the 

 throngs of young women that seek an independent livelihood is 

 only too frequently far from wholesome. The fatigue, poor 

 housing conditions and nervous strain to which they are subject 

 deprive many of the natural inclination to marry or render them 

 less apt to be chosen as wives. But the baneful influence of 

 industrial development is not so much its effect upon the physical 

 welfare of womankind in general, as its tendency to divert the 

 better endowed from the duties of motherhood. 



Besides the effect of employment of women upon marriage we 

 must reckon with its influence upon women after they are mar- 

 ried. The proportion of married women who are employed in 

 gainful occupations is of course much smaller than in the un- 



