this smaller productivity diminishes the maximum wage attainable
by women as compared with men, it is evident that many forces are at
work which tend to equalise the productivity of men and women in
industry: the evolution of machinery adapted to the weaker physique of
women; the breakdown of customs excluding women from many occupations;
the growth of restrictions upon male adult labour with regard to the
working-day, etc., correspondent with those placed upon women;
improved mobility of women's labour by cheaper and more facile
transport in large cities; the recognition by a growing number of
women that matrimony is not the only livelihood open to them, but that
an industrial life is preferable and possible. These forces, unless
counteracted by stronger moral and social forces, seem likely to raise
the average productivity of women's industrial labour, and to incite
her more and more to undertake industrial wage-work.

Sec. 7. As the maximum wage may be said to vary with productivity, so the
minimum wage is said to vary with the "wants" of the worker. Women are
said to "want" less than man, and therefore the stress of competition
can drive their wages to a lower level. It is possible that a woman
can sustain the smaller quantity of physical energy required for her
work somewhat more cheaply than a man can sustain the energy required
for his work, and that the early increments of material comfort above
the bare subsistence line may be attended by a larger increase of
productivity in the man than in the woman. If this is so, then the
minimum subsistence wage and the wage of true economic efficiency, the
smallest wage a wise employer in his own interest will consent to pay,
are lower in the case of women than of men. But this difference
furnishes no adequate explanation of the difference between the male
and the female minimum wage. The wage of the low-skilled male labourer
enables him to consume certain things which do not belong strictly to
his "subsistence"--to wit, beer and tobacco; the wage of the
low-skilled female labourer often falls below what is sufficient with
the most rigid economy to provide "subsistence." We are not then
concerned with a difference which refers primarily to the quantity of
food, etc., required to support life. The wages of the low-skilled
labourer in regular employ would, if properly used, suffice to furnish
him more than a bare physical subsistence; the wages of the
lowest-paid women work