60
Census does enumerate as being in full-time employment must be treated as being in actual fact working independently, except for those enumerated as agricultural labourers. The 404 women so enumerated in Northern District represent 2.5% of the total of 16,271 women aged between 15 and 45 in Northern District in 1911. Clearly, there were a substantial minority of women who were in full-time independent employment outside the home in 1911. From the 1911 statistics, many were working at the lower end of the employment market, as coolies and general labourers, or hawkers, but there were enough women operating shops (possibly in many cases as widows taking over the family shop after their husband's death) to make it clear that shops operated by women were by no means rare, as, indeed, oral evidence would lead us to expect. The 1911 female masons, carpenters, general shopkeepers, doctors, basketry dealers, joss-stick dealers, and restaurant keepers are all in this category.
The 1911 statistics do note, but clearly under-represent, the specifically female occupations (embroiderers, seamstresses, nuns, and prostitutes), plus the fuel sellers which oral evidence strongly suggests was another more or less exclusively female occupation. The 1911 statistics also suggest that beancurd selling, in 1911 as now, was essentially a female occupation. The presence of prostitutes only in Southern District confirms the oral evidence that, while there were no prostitutes in Tai Po or Yuen Long, there were in Kowloon City and Cheung Chau. Midwives and marriage brokers were also purely women's work, but mostly were part-time jobs undertaken ad hoc by housewives, and so only two strays out of the many dozens who worked in these areas appear in the statistics. The 1911 statistics, however, seriously under-record women working in these trades. In 1921, in Northern District, far more women are recorded as working in them than in 1911 (thus, 61 female foodstuff sellers are recorded in 1921 as against 21 in 1911; 1669 seamstresses as against 36; 48 weavers as against 0; 118 coolies/hawkers as against 50; 107 nuns, fortune tellers, temple keepers etc as against 18, and so on). The 1921 Northern District statistics for female occupations, therefore, are much fuller, and so probably closer to the actual position, even if under-recording is still likely.
The 1911 statistics draw a distinction which is probably real, between "Tailors" or "Dress" (male: Northern and Southern Districts
60
Census does enumerate as being in full-time employment must be treated as being in actual fact working independently, except for those enumerated as agricultural labourers. The 404 women so enumerated in Northern District represent 2.5% of the total of 16,271 women aged between 15 and 45 in Northern District in 1911. Clearly, there were a substantial minority of women who were in full-time independent employment outside the home in 1911. From the 1911 statistics, many were working at the lower end of the employment market, as coolies and general labourers, or hawkers, but there were enough women operating shops (possibly in many cases as widows taking over the family shop after their husband's death) to make it clear that shops operated by women were by no means rare, as, indeed, oral evidence would lead us to expect. The 1911 female masons, carpenters, general shopkeepers, doctors, basketry dealers, jogs-stick dealers, and restaurant keepers are all in this category.
The 1911 statistics do note, but clearly under-represent, the specifically female occupations (embroiderers, seamstresses, nuns, and prostitutes), plus the fuel sellers which oral evidence strongly suggests was another more or less exclusively female occupation. The 1911 statistics also suggest that beancurd selling, in 1911 as now, was essentially a female occupation. The presence of prostitutes only in Southern District confirms the oral evidence that, while there we no prostitutes in Tai Po or Yuen Long, there were in Kowloon City and Cheung Chau. Midwives and marriage brokers were also purely rely women's work, but mostly were part-time jobs undertaken ad hoc by housewives, and so only two strays out of the many dozens who worked in these areas appear in the statistics. The 1911 statistics, however, seriously under-record women working in these trades. In 1921, in Northern District, far more women are recorded as working in them than in 1911 (thus, 61 female foodstuff sellers are recorded in 1921 as against 21 in 1911; 1669 seamstresses as against 36; 48 weavers as against 0; 118 coolies/hawkers as against 50; 107 nuns, fortune tellers, temple keepers etc as against 18, and so on). The 1921 Northern District statistics for female occupations, therefore, are much fuller, and so probably closer to the actual position, even if under-recording is still likely.
The 1911 statistics draw a distinction which is probably real, between "Tailors" or "Dress" (male: Northern and Southern Districts
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