CHART VI. PERCENT OF CHANGES IN EARNINGS SINCE THE

The small proportion of factory women who reported increased earnings was composed, for the most part, of apparel workers who had shifted to better-paying shops. The increase in clerical workers' earnings was due to higher rates of pay resulting from competition for the inadequate number of experienced office workers with specific skills and also to length-of-service raises, commonly granted to clerical workers.

Average earnings of factory operatives and of clerical workers covered in this survey also illustrate the drop in earnings since the war.

The proportion of women earning over $40 per week dropped markedly since the war. A substantial proportion of women (39 percent) earned $40 per week or more during the war, but by February 1946 this proportion had been cut by more than half, reflecting decreased earnings due to shorter hours, loss of overtime pay, and shifts to lower-paying peacetime jobs. The change in proportion is shown in the following tabulation (see also chart VII):

As the foregoing analysis shows, earnings of women workers were affected in different ways. Certain groups of women experienced very serious cuts in weekly earnings, while other women were no worse off, and some were relatively better off than during the war period.

Percent of women

Although the experiences of the women interviewed do not provide a quantitative measure of the problems to be met, they do indicate some of the questions Bridgeport must take into account in dealing with the needs of its women workers.

CHART VII.-COMPARISON OF USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS IN THE WAR PERIOD AND IN FEBRUARY 1946

15

10

Ο

Percent of women

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Of the women workers who were interviewed, something over twofifths were between 20 and 30 years old. About 50 percent of the group were single, 40 percent married, and 10 percent widowed or divorced. About a third of them had never been beyond the eighth grade in school, a fourth had entered high school but never finished, another third were high school graduates, and the remaining 9 percent had attended college or university. Only a small percentage, 4 percent, were Negroes.

OTHER INFORMATION FROM WOMEN INTERVIEWED

Husbands in service-Only eight, or 3 percent, of the married women had husbands still in service.

Experience of workers-65 percent of the women had worked at least 5 years. It is interesting to note that 75 percent of the women affiliated with trade unions had been employed 5 years or more.

In-migration-13 percent of the women were in-migrant workers who had moved into the Bridgeport area since the beginning of the war; two-fifths of these came from other places in Connecticut.

Employment of Negroes-During the war and since the war, most of the 4 percent of the women interviewed who were Negroes were employed in factories. The week before Pearl Harbor, the number in service industries was equal to the number in factories.

Women not in the labor market-About 10 percent of the women interviewed were no longer in the labor market. Proportionately more of these were married than single. Half of the women who left the labor market had been factory workers during the war, and close to one-fourth had been clerical workers.

CHARACTERISTICS OF UNEMPLOYED WOMEN AND DATA ON UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION

The personal characteristics of women job seekers, some of whom were veterans, and of women recipients of unemployment compensation were analyzed from records in the USES office. Data were also obtained from the current file of the Unemployment Compensation Board on how much was paid to Bridgeport women receiving unemployment compensation benefits and for how long each woman received such benefits.

WOMEN APPLICANTS AT THE USES

Personal characteristics of the group of women job seekers at the USES differed markedly from those of the employed group among women interviewed by Women's Bureau agents.

Probably the outstanding difference between these two groups was the higher proportion among the unemployed of women 40 years of age and over. It was also evident that a higher proportion of the job applicants were married, and a relatively larger number had had no high school education. Finally, there was a higher proportion of Negroes among the applicants than among the employed women interviewed.

These differences show that to the extent that unemployment exists it presents particular difficulties to older women, married women, less educated women, and Negroes. These are the groups for whom local programs of vocational training and placement are most needed. The characteristics of the unemployed women registered at the USES are shown in greater detail in table 5.

Table 5.-Comparison of Personal Characteristics of 579 Women Workers and of Women Job Seekers Registered With the USES

WOMEN VETERANS REGISTERED AT THE USES

Since the placement of veterans is of special interest today, an analysis was made of all the job applications on file from women veterans. There were 87 such applications in the Bridgeport office in February 1946. About half of these women had been in the Army (WAC); less than half, in the Navy (WAVES); and a few, with the Marine Corps Women's Reserve. Forty-three percent of these veterans were receiving unemployment compensation at the time of the study.

The veterans were characteristically a young group of women. Most of them were under 30. Almost all of these ex-servicewomen registered with the USES were white, and over half of them were single. More than half were high school graduates, and 9 percent had attended college. Forty percent reported some trade education; business college, nursing or other professional training, industrial schooling, etc.

Nearly all had been employed before entering the service. Enlistments had been drawn largely from the ranks of the white-collar workers; only about one-third had been factory or service workers before the war, while nearly two-thirds had been in sales, clerical, professional or semiprofessional work. Further evidence that most had been white-collar workers is found in the fact that three-fifths of

these veteran-registrants applied to the USES for clerical work since their discharge.

As for post-discharge occupational plans, as indicated by applications for employment, the study showed:

(1) About one-half (55 percent) of the women veterans did the same type of work while they were in the service as they had done previous to their enlistments and were applying for that type of work in a civilian postwar job. This group was made up of women who had special skills which were useful to the services, and the enlistees were put into uniform and assigned to the type of work for which they were qualified. Included in the special-skill jobs which the Army and Navy found so useful were: telephone operator; photographic processing occupations; physiotherapist; stenographer and typist; secretary; special clerical jobs such as bookkeeping machine operator, purchasing clerk, and pay-roll clerk.

An interesting example is the veteran who had been a dressmaker before the war, made costumes for army shows as a Wac, and was looking for a dressmaking job again. (2) Of the women who learned new skills while in the service, 7 out of 10 wanted to come back to their preservice work. The others applied for jobs of the same type that they held as servicewomen. Among these were the clerical workers (stenographers, typists, clerks), whom the service trained from the ranks of the ex-factory workers and ex-salesgirls, and those who learned special technical occupations, such as the army-trained physiotherapist who had been a clerical worker before enlisting.

(3) Some of the ex-servicewomen had been doing work in the Army or Navy which would ordinarily have been men's work. In this group were an aircraft dispatcher, truck drivers, and mechanics. These and a few others who learned special skills for which there will be no demand in the civilian labor market will probably have little chance to use their service-acquired skills in their postwar jobs.

(4) On the whole, then, the group presents a picture of women who were back in the civilian labor market, most of whom were searching for jobs similar to those they had had before the war; only a few were seeking jobs for which their service training and experience had prepared them.

Only four Negro women were among the veteran-registrants, and their story was much the same as that of the white women. All four were unmarried and were between the ages of 20 and 30; all were high-school graduates and one had been in college. One, who had been a nurse before the war and had served in the Army Nurse Corps during the war, asked for nursing work on her USES application; one applied for laboratory work; the third, who had worked in a factory before the war, was seeking that kind of work since her discharge; and the fourth, who had done clerical work in the WAC, wanted to continue in that type of work.