Spreading Their Wings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 539, 17 December 1928, Page 8

Spreading Their Wings

Girls Face Business Problem

SCHOOLDAYS are ended for many Auckland girls. This week they leave behind them the tedium of class-room study and prepare to face the broad problem of their future careers. The eye of the new Government is focussed upon

their welfare, and parents are running anxious fingers down the lists of possible occupations. In many homes Miss 192!) lias already been assigned her first post in business life.

Most girls marry eventually, but there is a period between the finish of school lessons and the acceptance of domestic responsibility—call it “the dangerous age” if you will —when they must earn their own living, as well as gain the experience necessary to equip them for the realities of life which follow the comparative pleasantries of adolescence. Not that life for all women is a stern up-hill struggle against the world and its fellows. For some it is quite the contrary. But the foundation of progress must be laid, and the young New Zealand girl of school-leaving age now

looks about her, seeking a career—preferably one possessing the velvet edge of handsome pay and good conditions—upon which to bestow her particular talents and graces. Since a girl cannot say on leaving school when she marry—or even whether she will ever marry—her choice of an occupation is encompassed by serious difficulties, for she cannot judge whether she will require a permanent career or a temporary means of livelihood. But natural and economic influences lead most girls along the right pat’t when this big question presents itself to them, and the manner in which their business training dovetails into their ultimate pursuit—domesticity—widens for them the field of selection. For instance, more than four-fifths of the women in New Zealand require a training; in domestic science and home arts as a preparation for their life work. Moreover, the conditions and pay, including board and lodging, in domestic service in private houses compare favourably with those in any other occupation for women outside the pro-

fessions. and the training; usually forms an excellent ground-work for the homemaker.

Clerical •work frequently becomes a dead-end occupation for women, although the principles of business management are always an asset in the successful administration of the family purse. In some instances girls qualify for accountancy. There are 1,100 female accountants and book-keepers in New Zealand to-day. though not all of these have the professional standing of registered practices. WOMEN FARM OWNERS

About 4.5 per cent, of our occupied women find their way into clerical and commercial jobs. Openings in banks, insurance companies and shipping offices are comparatively few for girl clerks, but a kirge number of typistes and shorthand-writers are employed at wages rising from £65 a year up to £l6O at the end of five years. Few senior positions offer, but these command from £250 to £3OO annually.

Just on 3.S per cent, of our occupied women go into trades and shops, 2.7 per cent, are in manufacturing jobs, 2.2 per cent, go in for agriculture, and 2.7 per cent, take up professional careers.

Parents who seek a future for their girls cannot afford to overlook |he fact that there are in the Dominion ap*proximately 2,000 women, owners or occupiers of farms, as well as over 6,000 women classed as farm labourers.

In some of the professions and semiprofessional occupations, the door is wide open for women practitioners, chief among them being nursing, teaching and music; in others such as medicine, dentistry, journalism, architecture and law, the opportunities for advancement are insufficient to justify the long years of hard study. SMILES REQUIRED

Nursing and teaching are the most popular professions for New Zealand girls. Teaching offers probably the most generally satisfactory profession outside the home, and 76S in every 10,000 women workers in the country are engaged in it at salaries which range from £BO a year at the beginning to the £l4O and £4OO mark at primary schools, and higher according to special aptitude in advanced positions. In every 10,000 women workers here, 320 go in for nursing. This is a profession which, if not altogether domestic, is closely related to the home, for the course of training, besides demanding the care of the sick, requires the ability to cot): food for invalids. Among a nurse’s qualifications are: Strong constitution, well-balanced mind. steady nerves, and muscular power and control, besides a cool head, and that invaluable sick room asset—a cheerful smile.

A brief review of what our New Zealand girls are doing upon leaving school serves to indicate the business callings of women in their order of popularity. Some will find the exacting conditions of speed-shorthand too tedious, factory life too monotonous and the nurse’s cheerful smile too difficult. Others will soar ambitiously to the heights of feminine achievement and study for law, art. medicine. Most of them eventually will join the drift toward home-life, where a great deal of their business activity will revolve around the kitchen sink.