The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913Various
History
The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
With regard to these 13,740 between the ages of fourteen and sixteen
whom the school census of June, 1912, found to be at work, the study
undertook to answer two questions: first, are the occupations in which
the boys and girls are employed of such a nature that they will train
for a competence in later life? Second, is the immediate wage received
of sufficient importance to counterbalance the tremendous loss of power
in those who face mature life unprepared? As a continuation of this
investigation the Compulsory Education Bureau has followed up since
September of last year and will continue to do so, every child who
leaves school to go to work. The kind of job taken, the exact nature of
the work done, and the wage received will be learned. About 1,700 labor
certificates are issued in Philadelphia every month.
At the outset it was discovered that the problem is not one of the
immigrant child chiefly. The percentage of American parentage was 50.2;
of foreign parentage, 48.1; of Negro parentage, 1.7 Nor is it a problem
of boys chiefly, for 6,849, or 49.85 per cent of the total, were girls.
THE SURVEY has already told how the Vocational Guidance Survey of New
York followed a group of boys and girls from the day they received their
labor certificates through all the different jobs which they held during
the next four or five months. The study emphasized the hit-or-miss
jumping from one line of work to another which untrained youths are sure
to resort to, acquiring no training and achieving no advance. The
Philadelphia study furnishes a cross section of the positions held by
this much larger group at a given moment. Forty-three per cent of both
boys and girls were in the factory, where, says the report,
“the positions are largely mechanical and require but short time in
learning, little responsibility, and great specialization of
processes. These positions offer an initial wage which is alluringly
high, but hold out little incentive for growth and but slightly
advanced wages for the experienced operative.”
Twenty-nine per cent were in the store and the office, “where a few may
advance to higher places, but it is evident that a majority must hold
low-grade positions which require little preparation or skill.”
A comparison of the employments of both sexes showed that there is no
kind of work which both boys and girls will not do. While boys
predominate in the store, the office, in messenger service, street
trades and skilled trades, girls have the largest number in the factory,
in service and in house work. Yet twenty-five girls were exposed to the
dangers of street trades and 118 boys were taken out of school to do
house work in their own homes without pay. The diagram on the next page
shows the percentages and numbers of the total engaged in the various
lines of work, and the relative proportion of boys and girls in each.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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