50
are included in the Southern District figures, although this is unlikely. For these reasons, the Southern "Occupations" tables are more difficult to use than the Northern ones. In 1911, occupations are recorded for 11,036 Southern District males and 2,270 females, against the islands recorded land population of 6,229 males and 5,271 females, and the total Southern District population (including New Kowloon but excluding the boat-people) of 14,228 males and 10,896 females.
The low figure of women recorded as being in full-time occupation in Southern District in 1911 (about 22.7% of recorded females) as compared with Northern District (51.7%) is due to Southern District's high percentage of fishermen, and low percentage of farmers, as compared with Northern District. In 1911, in both Northern District and Southern District the ratio of fishermen to fisherwomen recorded is low (24.68:1; 63.2:1 respectively - 1,851 fishermen to 75 fisherwomen in Northern District, 1,580 fishermen to 25 fisherwomen in Southern District), while that of (male) farmers to (female) agricultural labourers is high (1.05:1, 1.7:1 - 14,630 male farmers, market gardeners, or miscellaneous agricultural labourers to 13,982 female agricultural labourers in Northern District, and 3,138 to 1,820 in Southern District). Clearly the 1911 Census enumerators considered the wife of a fisherman as essentially no more than a housewife (while her duties as a fisherwoman were significant, they were conducted from a boat which was also her home), but the wife of a farmer, since she had to assist in the fields, away from the home, was classed as an independent farm labourer. Other women, working from their own homes, were also probably classed as housewives in 1911 and left unrecorded in this way, an especially significant factor where the wives of shopkeepers running shops or workshops from the buildings they lived in are concerned, 63.8% of all males in Northern District whose occupation was recorded in 1911 were farmers or working in agriculture, as opposed to only 26.8% in Southern District. Only 8% of males with occupations recorded in 1911 were fishermen in Northern District, as against 14% in Southern. Shopkeepers, and workshop operators, were also more common in Southern District. The two societies, the one landward, and the other coastal and urban, were very different, and the enumeration of