Women Workers in the British Munitions Supply Co. Ltd., Verdun, P.Q. 1916-18.
While sons worked as messengers or in factories, daughters and wives found jobs to help support the family. Twenty per cent of the labour force was composed of women, and half of these were under 25 years of age in 1901. The percentage was greatly increased by the war effort. Women earned pitifully small wages, usually only half of what men earned. Most jobs available to women required little skill but much endurance. Women on the average worked longer hours than men and, like the unskilled workers, had far less chance of being protected by a union. Their only protection was a law which limited their working hours to 60 per week.
