Women's Labor Under the Conditions of the Scientific and Technological Revolution

E. S. Kogotkova

The twentieth century is the century of a grandiose scientific and technological revolution. In our day the attention of all humanity is riveted on the problems of scientific and technological progress. This is entirely natural, since the scientific and technological revolution is radically changing technique, technology, and the content of labor, i.e., it is conditioning the rapid development of society’s productive forces. In studying the problems of scientific and technological progress, researchers devote great attention to its influence on the use of labor resources as a whole and of women’s labor in particular. The singling out of women’s labor as an independent problem is due not simply to the fact that women constitute half of humanity, but also to certain particular features in the position of women in production and in the family.

The classics of Marxism-Leninism considered women’s participation in social labor as an objective process naturally flowing from the development of society’s productive forces. In the socio-economic sense, they examined women’s labor from the standpoint of determining its place in one or another historically defined system of the social division of labor.

The conditions for the mass involvement of women in social production first arose under capitalism with the transition from manual labor to large-scale machine production. The use of machines makes it possible to replace the labor of workers with the work of mechanisms. The machine renders great physical strength superfluous. “Since machinery dispenses with muscular power, it becomes a means of employing workers without muscular strength or of insufficient physical development, but with more flexible limbs. Therefore women’s and children’s labor was the first word of the capitalist application of machinery.”¹

With the progress of science and technology, the increased technical equipment of production, and the improvement of its structure, the possibility and necessity of using female labor power inevitably increase.

The study of the dynamics of women’s labor under conditions of scientific and technological progress, regardless of those historically defined forms of social production in which it is carried out, makes it possible to draw the following conclusions:

1. Scientific and technological progress conditions the rapid growth in the use of women’s labor and an increase in its share in the labor force. Thus, in

In the United States the number of working women in 1870 was 1,836 thousand persons, which amounted to 14.7%, and in 1960—22,527 thousand, which already amounted to 33.3% among all workers². By 1964, women in social production in the United States made up 34%³. In France in 1967, 25.5% of women were employed; in the FRG in 1966—31.4%; in Italy—19.8%; in Belgium—24.3%⁴. In the USSR in 1928, 2,795 thousand women were employed in the national economy, which amounted to 24% of the total number of workers and employees; in 1967—41,060 thousand—50%⁵.

In Bulgaria the share of women in the total number employed in the national economy in 1955 was 42.1%, in 1966—44.0%. In Hungary in 1950—30.5%, in 1967—39.6%; in the GDR in 1956—40.0%, in 1967—47.2%; in Poland in 1950—44.7%, in 1966—46%; in Romania in 1955—45.3%, in 1966—47.1%; in Czechoslovakia in 1950—38.4%, in 1967—45.5%⁶.

The data cited show that in those countries where the scientific and technological revolution is being carried out most intensively, the relative weight of women’s labor in social production is higher. Among capitalist countries this is the United States; among socialist countries, the USSR.

1. The increase in women’s labor in social production is taking place faster than the increase in men’s labor. Thus, in the United States over 15 years, from 1950 to 1964, almost 60%⁷ of the increase in the labor force was accounted for by women. In Czechoslovakia during the period from 1951 to 1967 the number of women increased by 916 thousand, which amounted to 82.6% of the increase in the total number employed; in Hungary—by 663 thousand (91.7% of the increase in the number employed). In Poland, in the public sector of the economy, the number of women rose by 1,175 thousand persons (57.8% of the increase in the number employed). The same processes are occurring in Bulgaria, the GDR, and Romania⁸.

2. In terms of growth rates, the number of working women outstrips both the overall growth of the labor force and the growth of the population. Thus, in the United States in 1870, out of every 100 women of working age, 13 were employed; in 1920—21; in 1940—24; in 1959—35 persons⁹. In the USSR, the growth of female employment is taking place under conditions of a slow but nevertheless declining share of women in the composition of the entire population. In the GDR, while the number of women aged 15–59 decreased from 6,116 thousand in 1955 to 5,077 thousand in 1965, the number of employed women of this age increased. The number of working women over 60 also increased (from 150 thousand in 1955 to 300 thousand in 1965). The total number of women employed in the national economy of the GDR during the period from 1955 to 1966 rose from 3,396 to 3,606 thousand. In Czechoslovakia, the rates of replenishment of the working-age population are small, while the degree of women’s involvement in social production is high¹⁰.

3. As a result of scientific and technological progress, structural shifts are taking place in social production, above all the development of the nonproductive sphere, in which the share of women’s labor exceeds its share in the sphere of material production.

² Z. Pashetkina. Problems of Women’s Labor in the USA. 1961, p. 6.
³ I. V. Bushmarin. The Use of Labor Resources in the USA. 1967, p. 27.
⁴ L. S. Degtyar. Labor Resources and Their Use in the Foreign Socialist Countries—Members of the CMEA. 1969, p. 112.
⁵ Women and Children in the USSR. Statistical collection. Moscow, 1969, p. 80.
⁶ L. S. Degtyar. Labor Resources and Their Use in the Foreign Socialist Countries—Members of the CMEA, 1969, p. 104.
⁷ I. V. Bushmarin. The Use of Labor Resources in the USA. 1967, p. 27.
⁸ L. S. Degtyar. Labor Resources and Their Use in the Foreign Socialist Countries—Members of the CMEA. 1969, p. 102.
⁹ Z. Pashetkina. Problems of Women’s Labor in the USA. 1961, p. 5.
¹⁰ K. I. Mikulsky. Labor Resources of the European Socialist Countries. Moscow, “Statistika,” 1969, p. 79.

In the contemporary nonproduction sphere of the USA, almost half of those employed are women, whereas in the sphere of material production women account for only 19%.¹¹

In the USSR in 1959, among those employed in the nonproduction sphere, women accounted for 64%, and among those employed in branches of material production, 47%.¹²

Such are some of the general regularities in the changes in women’s labor, characteristic of both capitalism and socialism, caused at the present stage by the development of the productive forces and by the scientific and technological revolution. The social forms of women’s labor, however, differ under different socio-historical conditions.

The character of labor, the forms of its organization, and the methods of drawing people into labor are wholly determined by the property relations prevailing in society. This accounts for the different position of women’s labor in different socioeconomic systems. The progressive process in itself of involving women in social production has assumed ugly forms under capitalism.

Today, as a hundred years ago, discrimination against women’s labor is widespread in all capitalist countries. Its principal form is wage discrimination, which consists in the fact that a woman receives lower pay for work equal to that of a man. Thus, in the USA, those working year-round and a full workweek in 1960 received annually: male professionals—6,848 dollars, women—4,384 dollars; administrative and managerial personnel, entrepreneurs: men—7,241 dollars, women—4,173 dollars; office employees: men—5,247 dollars, women—3,586; semi-skilled workers: men—4,977 dollars, women—2,970; sales workers: men—5,755, women—2,428; service workers: men—4,089, women—2,418.¹³ Of course, these data may be the result of the fact that women’s labor is used in less qualified jobs compared with men’s. More convincing data on wage discrimination against women’s labor are presented by Z. Pashetkina in her work Problems of Women’s Labor in the USA, which, on the basis of a careful analysis of systematic data on women’s wages in various spheres of activity for the period from 1914 to 1959, proves that women receive different pay for the same work as men.¹⁴ Discrimination against women’s labor under capitalism is not limited to wage discrimination. It is supplemented by discrimination in promotion up the career ladder, in the opportunity to obtain professional education, in the right to receive benefits and pensions and in the amount of these, and so on.

It is characteristic of capitalism that the expanded use of women’s labor takes place under conditions of intensifying chronic unemployment, which affects both women and men. In the USA, from 1956 to 1964, the share of all unemployed rose from 4.2 to 5.2%; among young people aged 14–19 it rose from 10.4 to 14.7%; among men aged 20–24, from 6.9 to 8.1%; among women of the same age, from 6.3 to 8.6%.¹⁵

Socialism, by eliminating the capitalist form of production, at the basis of which lies private ownership of the means of production, thereby also destroys the specifically capitalist form of the division of labor by sex. Under socialism, discrimina-

¹¹ I. V. Bushmarin. Use of Labor Resources in the USA, 1967, p. 28.
¹² Women and Children in the USSR. Statistical Collection. Moscow, 1969, p. 62.
¹³ I. V. Bushmarin. Use of Labor Resources in the USA. Moscow, 1967, p. 38.
¹⁴ Z. Pashetkina. Problems of Women’s Labor in the USA. Moscow, 1961, pp. 37–62.
¹⁵ I. V. Bushmarin. Use of Labor Resources in the USA. Moscow, 1967, pp. 53–54.

women in all its manifestations; special legislation ensures for women equal rights with men to work, equal pay for work, rest, protection of mother and child, benefits for pregnant women and nursing mothers; paid leave for pregnancy and childbirth is provided, as are allowances for mothers with many children and single mothers; a broad network of health-care and educational institutions and public forms of child upbringing has been developed. It is precisely for this reason (as is evident from the data cited above) that women’s employment in social production in all socialist countries is higher than in capitalist countries, regardless of the level of scientific and technological progress.

It was noted above that, under conditions of scientific and technological progress, women’s employment is outstripping men’s. Moreover, in the United States 90% of the increase in women’s employment is accounted for by women over the age of 35. Of these, 55% are women aged 45 to 64, i.e., at the time when a woman-mother is freed from the direct care of children. Capitalism, having drawn women into social production, has left all household tasks on their shoulders. Bourgeois society regards the question of motherhood as a narrow-family, private matter. Women in capitalist countries, because of the absence of children’s institutions, or their poor development and the high cost of maintaining children in them, are forced to stop working for long periods. Under these conditions, women’s professional specialization is essentially limited to a circle of relatively simple occupations. In 1964, among those employed in the main types of activity in the U.S. economy, women accounted for: among specialists with secondary specialized and higher education, 36.4%; entrepreneurs and administrative-managerial personnel, 14.9%; office employees, 70%; salespersons, 39.3%; skilled workers, 2.8%; semiskilled workers, 28.2%; unskilled workers, 2.5%; farmers and farm managers, 5.7%; agricultural workers, 32.4%; service workers, 53.8%; domestic servants, 97.3%.^16

The data show that the highest proportion of women is among service workers, domestic servants, office employees, and salespersons. In the group of specialists, the largest share of women is among medical workers of middle qualification (98%), primary-school teachers (86%), teachers in vocational and other types of education (62%), and health-care technicians (62%).^17

In the sphere of material production, the greatest relative weight of women is among semiskilled and agricultural workers.

Scientific and technological progress is accompanied by a sharp deepening of the social division of labor, all forms of which are connected with the professional division of labor. As a result of mechanization and automation, old occupations disappear and new ones appear. Under socialism, women’s employment shows a reduction in the share of heavy physical labor and a growth of mechanized labor. In the USSR, over 20 years (1939–1959), the number of women employed at power installations and on hoisting-and-transport mechanisms increased more than fourfold; women fitters, assemblers, and erectors—4.5 times; adjusters, tuners, and equipment regulators—almost threefold. At the same time, women’s employment in less mechanized agricultural work declined by 2% over this period.^18

^16 I. V. Bushmarin. The Use of Labor Resources in the USA. Moscow, 1967, p. 31.
^17 I. V. Bushmarin. The Use of Labor Resources in the USA. Moscow, 1967, p. 32.
^18 Women and Children in the USSR. Moscow, 1969, pp. 68–69.

Technical progress and the development of science determine changes in the division of women’s labor among various areas of employment. The development of production under the conditions of an exploiting society led to the division of labor into branches of predominantly male and female employment. Socialist social production, on the basis of comprehensive scientific and technological progress, creates all the conditions for overcoming the remnants of the old division of labor and for the ever broader penetration of women’s labor into new branches. In the GDR, during the period from 1958 to 1967, the share of women’s labor in the textile industry decreased by 18.4%, and in the clothing industry by 14.1%; during the same period, in machine building it increased by 19.3%, and in the chemical industry by 11.2%. In Hungary, in 1958–1965 the number of women employed in the textile industry grew by 15.9%, in machine building by 27.9%, and in chemistry by 37.7%.¹⁹

The main tendencies in the redistribution of women’s labor by spheres and branches of the national economy of the USSR are: a) a reduction in the relative employment of women in agriculture and an increase in it in industry; b) a sharp increase in the proportion of women employed in education, health care, culture, and science; c) the outstripping rate of growth of women’s employment in predominantly mental labor as compared with the rate of growth of employment in physical labor.

However, in analyzing the socio-economic features of women’s labor under socialism it is necessary to take into account the fact that in the first phase of the development of the new society there still remain—and cannot but remain—survivals of the old social division of labor. The process of forming large-scale machine production has not yet been completed. Manual production and remnants of small-scale economy persist (the small subsidiary holdings of peasants, workers, and employees, and household economy). This inevitably gives rise to contradictions in the use of women’s labor. Women’s employment in auxiliary and subsidiary jobs, which are predominantly manual, is still considerable. The growth of women’s employment in the most progressive types of labor is insufficient. Remnants of the old division of labor into branches of predominantly male and female employment still persist; moreover, often this is determined by the privileged position of male labor, and not by the protection of female labor. Incidentally, it should be noted that “women’s occupations” are far from the easiest. Although the proportion of women in all branches of the national economy is high, it differs across the various spheres of productive activity. In labor socialized on the scale of the whole of society, it is 50%; within collective-farm and cooperative enterprises, 55%; in private subsidiary farming, 96%; and in household economy, 89.5%.²⁰

Labor that is poorly equipped technically in private subsidiary and household economy is, consequently, the sphere in which women’s labor is predominantly applied. This specific position of women in the system of social socialist production has been inherited from the thousand-year history of the development of the social division of labor, conditioned by the level of development of society’s productive forces. In the process of creating the material and technical base of communism, women’s labor will lose the socio-economic specificity characteristic of it under socialism, which ultimately will lead to complete socio-economic equality in the position of women.

¹⁹ L. S. Degtyar, Labor Resources and Their Use in Foreign Socialist Countries—Members of CMEA. Moscow, 1969, p. 111.
²⁰ Based on data from the 1959 All-Union Population Census.

1. K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, 1959, p. 400. ↩