Working Women

of Labour Statistics. Board of Trade (Department of Labour Statistics), Sixteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom (PP, 1914, LXXX), 453. 28 Robert Andrew Anderson, With Plunkett in Ireland: The Co-Operative Organiser's Story (Dublin, 1983; orig. pub. 1935), 26-27. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.161 on Mon, 23 May 2016 06:19:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms WORKING WOMEN IN IRELAND | 495 The labor involved in food did not stop with its preparation. The ritual of eating also entailed responsibilities for the women. Hospitality was labor. Women were responsible for feeding all of the members of a household, including the increasing numbers of male farm servants. The work involved in entertaining is illustrated in the memoirs of R. A. Anderson, a co-operative adviser. He reveled in the unrestrained hospitality of one of the homes that he visited on his travels. After a gargantuan feast of ham, geese, duck, mutton (one leg boiled and the other roasted), chickens, cabbage, and potatoes, the host turned to his wife and two daughters who had waited on them during the meal, commanding them to bring the whiskey, and sugar tumblers, and be continually [sic] bringing hot water! It was only after the men had finished eating and drinking that the wife and daughters were allowed to begin. The host's wife or the most senior woman in the household was responsible for managing consumption. Much less time was spent on child care than on cooking and cleaning. In part these activities were a function of the environment: in the countryside, children received less supervision. The labor of child care was undergoing change, however. Family size and the ages of children were significant factors in determining the amount of time spent in housework, as well as the marginal productivity of the labor of housekeepers. According to Kennedy, the number of legitimate births per I,ooo married women aged fifteen to forty-four years increased from 284 in I881 to 305 in I9I1. Between I88I and I89I, marital fertility increased by I percent. It increased by 2 percent in the next decade, and then by over 4 percent between I900 and 9I I. Women living on smaller (rather than larger) farms were more likely to take care of more children during this period. Although families living on holdings of thirty to fifty acres in I9go contained one more child under the age of fifteen years than families living on holdings of one to five acres, by I91I the differential had decreased, with the average number of children under fifteen years decreasing on the larger farms and increasing on the smaller ones. Children were spaced closer together (see Table 4).29 29 Robert E. Kennedy, The Irish (Berkeley, 1973), I76. Figures based on the analysis of eight District Electoral Divisions in 1901 and I9I I. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.161 on Mon, 23 May 2016 06:19:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Business · Economics · Labour economics · Irish and British Studies

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