As a grade nine student with average writing skills using this info: sphere

Did Women Make Progress
in the Paid Workforce in
the First World War?

During
Rea
ding
1. Look at Evidence 1.26. During which decade did
women make the most gains in their participation
rate in the workforce?

2. Why are these data useful or not useful for answer-
ing the question in the section title?

3. What specific data would make the information in
Evidence 1.26 more helpful in understanding
women working during the First World War?
4. Examine Evidence 1.27. In your notebook, rank in

order (most popular to least popular) the occupa-
tions in 1921 and 1931.

5. Where have significant changes occurred?
6. How might you account for the changes or lack of
change?
7. Which occupational group increased the most as a
result of the war years? Which occupational group
decreased the least?
8. Speculate on why the changes in question 7

occurred in these two areas. Can you make any con-
nection with the war?

9. Based on Evidence 1.26 and 1.27, state your prelim-
inary observations and conclusions on whether

women made progress in the paid workforce during
and immediately after the First World War.
10. Do you think these data represent the labour force
participation of all races of women? Why or why
not? Make a reasonable prediction.
NOTE: Because detailed annual data were not collected
until 1945, we do not know to what extent participation
rates responded to short-term economic shifts (such as
labour shortages). This lack of detail is one reason that
examining this issue is difficult.

Evidence 1.26

Female Population and Labour Force Participation,

Canada, 1901–1931

Year Female population Labour force participation rate
1901 1957000 14.4%
1911 2521000 16.6%
1921 3184000 17.7%
1931 3875000 19.4%
Source: Adapted from Statistics Canada, 1982. Evidence 1.27

Percentage Distribution of Working Women by Leading
Occupational Groups, Canada, 1901–1931
Occupational group 1901 1911 1921 1931
Clerical 5.3% 9.4% 18.7% 17.7%
Personal Service* 42.0% 37.1% 25.8% 33.8%
Professional 14.7% 12.7% 19.1% 17.8%
Commercial and
Financial 2.4% 6.8% 8.5% 8.3%
Manufacturing and
Mechanical 29.6% 26.3% 17.8% 12.7%
Other 6.0% 7.8% 10.1% 9.6%
Total 100.0% 100.1% 100.0% 99.9%
* Domestic service, such as maids
Source: Adapted from Women at Work in Canada (Ottawa: Department of Labour,
1964), p. 28.

As men left their jobs to fight overseas,
women began to replace them in the
workforce. During the First World War, 30 000
women worked in munitions factories, and
thousands more worked in other industries,
offices, and on farms.

Interpreting Statistical Evidence

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Section Four Continuity and Change Did Women make Progress in the Paid Workforce in the First World War?

Continuity and Change

19
R
During
ea
ding
The quotations in Evidence 1.28 about women and the workforce during and immediately after the First World War
are taken from secondary sources. The authors of these quotations drew their conclusions based on considerable

research using primary sources. Carefully examine the quotations and answer the question: Was the war a turning-
point for Canadian women in the workforce? Use an organizer to include evidence supporting both pros and cons.

Evidence 1.28

Quotation Source
The need to send inexperienced women from the cities to work on
farms arose because the demands of war had created a shortage of
labour in many Ontario industries; agriculture was no exception.
Farmers, desperate for workers, although skeptical of the plan, finally
agreed to ... a government scheme to use “city girls” to harvest small
fruits and vegetables such as strawberries, apples, tomatoes, and beans.

Report to the Trades and Labour
Branch for 1917, Vol. I, Part IV, 1918,
p. 47. Cited in Pat Staton, It Was Their
War Too: Canadian Women in World
War I (Toronto: Green Dragon Press,
2006).

Urban working women saw their employment opportunities change.
Although many continued in domestic service, still the largest
employer of women, new jobs opened up. ... [T]he most widely
publicized were in the munitions industry ... . Although munitions
manufacturers paid wages well above those earned by women in
traditional occupations, female munitions workers in 1917 earned only
50–83 percent of what their male co-workers earned.

Alison Prentice, Paula Bourne, Gail
Cuthbert Brandt et al., Canadian
Women: A History (Toronto: Harcourt
Brace, 1996), p. 144.

Indications are that not until 1940 or so did any significant number of
[Black Canadian women] work at industrial labour ... at least 80 percent
of Black women in Canadian cities worked in domestic service.
Industrialization did not have the overwhelming impact on Black
women wage earners that it did on white women.

Dionne Brand, No Burden to Carry
(Toronto: Women’s Press, 1991), p. 15.

... the war established, once and for all, the propriety of women
working for wages before marriage, even when the young women
belonged to the middle class.

Alison Prentice et al., p. 146.

The war got more women out of the house and into factories, volunteer
activities, and even into the voting booths. After the war, women still
wanted to be part of these activities.

Ian M. Hundey and Michael L.
Magarrey, Canada: Understanding
Your Past (Toronto: Irwin, 1990),
p. 108.

[Women] should be equipped with knowledge and skill for
homemaking and assisted in making the best use of their years in paid
work. ... [L]ack of training in homemaking is probably the greatest
drawback which a girl in paid employment can have.

Marjorie MacMurchy, The Canadian
Girl at Work (vocational guidance
book, Ontario Ministry of Education,
1919), in Janice Acton, Penny
Goldsmith, and Bonnie Shepard,
Women at Work: 1850–1930
(Toronto: Canadian Women’s
Educational Press, 1974), p. 289.

Women’s salaries never matched those of the men they replaced and
they were fired from their “untraditional” jobs at the end of the
hostilities, but women got a sense of what they could do in the public
sphere when they had a chance.

Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel,
History of the Canadian Peoples, Vol. II,
1867 to the Present, 4th ed. (Toronto:
Pearson Education, 2005), p. 187.

Interpreting Quotations

3
2

4
5

6
1

7

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20 Canadian Sources: Investigated Chapter One 1914–1919 During
Rea
ding

1. Using Evidence 1.29 and 1.30, complete a table like this
in your notebook.
2. How does Evidence 1.29 reflect progress in the way
women’s roles during the war were presented?
3. Does Evidence 1.30 reveal a change in the
government’s view of women or a continuation of the
same views? Use evidence to support your conclusions.
4. Are temporary gains/advancements/progress still
important? Does change have to be permanent in
order to be significant?

I see... I think...
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
Therefore...

Evidence 1.30

Source: Bulletin, Government
of Ontario, shortly after the war.

Interpreting Government Propaganda

TO WOMEN
WORKERS
Are you working
for love or for money?
Are you holding a job
you do not need?
Perhaps you have a husband
well able to support you
and a comfortable home?
You took a job during the war to help meet the
shortage of labour.
You have “Made good” and you want to go
on working.
But the war is over and conditions have
changed.
There is no longer a shortage of labour. On

the contrary, Ontario is faced by a serious sit-
uation due to the number of men unemployed.

This number is being increased daily by
returning soldiers.

They must have work. The pains and dan-
gers they have endured in our defence give them

the right to expect it.
Do you feel justified in holding a job which

could be filled by a man who has not only him-
self to support, but a wife and family as well?

THINK IT OVER

Evidence 1.29

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Section Four Continuity and Change Did Women make Progress in the Paid Workforce in the First World War? 21
What do Evidence 1.31 and 1.32 suggest to you about advances women have made, or not made, in
employment opportunities since the end of the First World War? Would you have expected greater
change when looking at women in the paid workforce since the First World War? Why or why not?

After
R
e
ading

1. As a class, organize a triangle debate to respond to the question: Did women make significant advancements in paid
employment as a result of the First World War? Be sure to use evidence from Section Four to support your side of the debate.
2. If you were a reporter trying to figure out whether women made progress in the workforce during the First World War, what
questions would you want to ask the women in Evidence 1.31? What questions would you like to ask the women in Evidence
1.32 to determine the long-term impact of the war on women in the workforce?
3. Design a modern-day “propaganda piece” to promote male or female participation in an area of non-traditional employment.
Then
and
Now Evidence 1.31

Top: Women assembling airplane wings during the First
World War. Bottom: Women working in a munitions
factory, First World War.
What role are men playing in these photos? Does this
role represent change or continuity in the status of
gender equality in the wartime workforce?

Evidence 1.32

Top: Women working in a sewing company in Toronto,
Ontario, early 2005. Bottom: Ford Company employees
work on a vehicle as it makes its way along an assembly
line at the plant in Oakville, Ontario, October 2006.

How are working women and their working condi-
tions presented in Evidence 1.32 similar or not similar