Women on the Home Front in World War One

Beyond domestic service

Did World War One actually improve women's lives in Britain? At the time, many people believed that the war had helped advance women politically and economically. Thus, Mrs Millicent Fawcett, leading feminist, founder of Newnham College Cambridge and president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies from 1897 to 1918, said in 1918: 'The war revolutionised the industrial position of women - it found them serfs and left them free.' The war did offer women increased opportunities in the paid labour market. Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated two million women replaced men in employment, resulting in an increase in the proportion of women in total employment from 24 per cent in July 1914 to 37 per cent by November 1918.

Working conditions: unionism and pay

Trade unionism proved to be the second legacy of the war. Female workers had been less unionised than their male counterparts. This was because they tended to do part-time work and to work in smaller firms (which tended to be less unionised). Also, existing unions were often hostile to female workers. World War One forced unions to deal with the issue of women's work. The scale of women's employment could no longer be denied and rising levels of women left unmarried or widowed by the war forced the hands of the established unions.

Post war

Anxiety for their menfolk in war, the pressures of employment, combined with the need to perform housework in straitened circumstances and the inadequacy of social services exacted a heavy toll. It also made the withdrawal of women back into their homes after the war less surprising. This return to full-time domesticity was not, however, wholly voluntary.