B. Effects on children of mother's employment. 1. The mother in some cases suffers from the conditions of her work and can not bear healthy children. 2. The mother who goes out to work does not, in most instances, breast feed her baby. 3. The working mother is often overworked because of her double duties and as a result her children are neglected. VII. RELATION OF INCOME TO CHILD LABOR. A. Poverty, past or present, the chief cause of child labor. (See Section VI, Outline 3, Topic I, A.) 1. Family necessity is responsible for a large proportion of the gainful employment among children under 16 2. Parents' ignorance of the value of an education usually results from lack of opportunity in early life. B. Extent of assistance given family income by children's work. 1. In more than one-fifth of 15,704 wage earners' families in 1907-1909, children contributed to the family income. (See Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 414.) 2. In 18.6 per of white wage earners' families and 24.6 per cent of colored wage earners' families in 92 localities in the United States in 1918-19, children contributed to the family income. (See Monthly Labor Review, December, 1919, p. 32.) C. Effects of child labor on the welfare of children. 1. Children who are prematurely employed are deprived of the opportunity for normal physical development, a good education, and wholesome play. (See Section VI, Outline 3, Topic II.) VIII. RELATION OF INCOME TO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. A. Extent of poverty as a factor in delinquency. 1. A study of 584 delinquent boys and 157 delinquent girls in Chicago showed that 38.2 per cent of the boys and 68.8 per cent of the girls came from " very poor families; 37.9 per cent of the boys and 21 per cent of the girls from "poor" families; and only 1.7 of the boys and 1.3 per cent of the girls from "comfortable" families. (See Breckinridge and Abbott, The Delinquent Child and the Home, p. 72.) B. How low income contributes to juvenile delinquency. 1. Homes are in congested neighborhoods where there are few opportunities for wholesome recreation and many for wrongdoing. 2. Overcrowding in the home, especially if caused by lodgers, helps to break down delicacy and reserve and fre quently corrupts morals. 3. Actual want leads children to steal wood, coal, and other necessities of life. 4. Lack of spending money causes children to steal. 5. Desire for adventure in boys, unsatisfied in monotonous surroundings, seeks an outlet in building fires, stealing rides, loitering on railroad tracks, etc. 6. Desire for good clothes and amusements on the part of girls leads to immorality. 7. Occupations which young children enter offer many temptations. (See Section VI, Outline 3, Topic II, D, 2.) IX. EFFORTS TO SUPPLEMENT INCOME OR RAISE STANDARD OF LIVING THROUGH PUBLIC MEASURES. A. Social insurance. B. Mothers' pension laws. C. Housing laws and housing reform. D. Provision of playgrounds. E. Establishment of systems of public health nursing, clinics and children's health centers. READING REFERENCES. ALLEN, NILA F.: Infant Mortality, Results of a Field Study in Saginaw, Mich., U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 52, pp. 29-30, 38-48. ANTHONY, KATHERINE: Mothers Who Must Earn, Survey Associates (Inc.), New York, 1914. BACON, ALBION FELLOWS: What Bad Housing Means to the Community, National Housing Association, Publication 6, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York, February, 1914. BASHORE, HARVEY B.: Overcrowding and Defective Housing in the Rural Districts, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1915. BRECKINRIDGE, S. P., and ABBOTT, EDITH: The Delinquent Child and the Home, Survey Associates (Inc.), New York, 1916. Bureau of Municipal Research of Philadelphia, Workingmen's Standard of Living in Philadelphia, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1919. Cost of Living Among Wage-Earners, The: Lawrence, Mass., National Industrial Conference Board, Research Report No. 24, 15 Beacon Street, Boston, December, 1919. "Cost of living in the United States-family inconres," in Monthly Labor Review, vol. 9, December, 1919, pp. 1693-1705. "Cost of living in the United States," in Monthly Labor Review, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, vol. 8, May, 1919, pp. 1373, 1394; vol. 8, June, 1919, pp. 1651-1666; vol. 9, July, 1919, pp. 75, 114; vol. 9, August, 1919, pp. 419, 421. DEMPSEY, MARY: Infant Mortality, Results of a Field Study in Brockton, Mass., U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 37, pp. 30-39, 44-48. DUKE, EMMA: Infant Mortality, Results of a Field Study in Johnstown, Pa., Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1903, U. S. Bureau of HARRIS, L. I: Some Medical Aspects of the High Cost of Living, Department LAUCK, W. JETT: Studies of the Cost of Maintaining a Family at a Level of Health and Reasonable Comfort. Before the U. S. Railway Labor Board, 1920. and SYDEN STRICKER, EDGAR: Conditions of Labor in American Industries, Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York, 1917, pp. 29-74; 244-290; 291–383. MEEKER, ROYAL: Minimum Standards of Child Welfare, U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 63, 1919. NESBITT, FLORENCE: The Chicago Standard Budget for Dependent Families, Chicago Council of Social Agencies, Bulletin No. 5, 168 North Michigan Avenue, April, 1919. "Cost of living," in Standards of Child Welfare, U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 60, 1919, pp. 44-45. OGBURN, WILLIAM F.: "The financial cost of rearing a child." (In Standards of Child Welfare, U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 60, 1919, pp. 26-30.) PARADISE, VIOLA I. Maternity Care and the Welfare of Young Children in a Homesteading County in Montana, U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 34, 1919, pp. 25-26. ROBERTS, LYDIA: What is Malnutrition? U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 59, 1919. ROCHESTER, ANNA: Infant Mortality, Result of a Field Study in Baltimore, Children's Bureau (in press). Infant Mortality as an Economic Problem, National Conference of Social Work, Pamphlet 224, Chicago, 1919. Standards of Child Welfare, U. S. Children's Bureau, Publication No. 60, 1919, pp. 26-46. Standards Recommended for Permanent Industrial Housing Developments, U. S. Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation, March, 1918. STREIGHTOFF, FRANK HATCH: The Standard of Living Among the Industrial People of America, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1911. Tentative Quantity and Cost Budget, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1919. United Mine Workers of America: The Case of the Bituminous Coal Mine Workers, The United Mine Workers of America, Washington, 1920. U. S. Immigration Commission, Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1911, pp. 405–438. WOODBURY, ROBERT M.: Infant Mortality Studies of the Children's Bureau, reprinted from Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, June, 1918. OUTLINE 7. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES TO PROTECT MATERNITY, INFANCY, AND CHILDHOOD. More than 17,000 women die yearly in the United States and many more suffer ill health from causes incident to child bearing. This condition is now known to be largely preventable through provision for adequate care during pregnancy and confinement. Over 200,000 babies less than a year old die annually in the United States. To a great extent this loss of infant life may be prevented. Studies made by the Children's Bureau show the close relationship between unhygienic surroundings and ignorance and high maternal and infant mortalities. There is also a high mortality among children as a result of communicable diseases, especially the so-called children's diseases. Such infectious disease is one of the chief causes of death in childhood, and annually accounts for over 20,000 lives. Communicable disease may be controlled in large measure by public and private cooperation. I. PUBLIC MEASURES FOR THE PROTECTION OF MATERNITY AND INFANCY. The protection of motherhood has developed in different countries along various lines, namely: A. The provision of good nursing and medical services, includ- B. A cash bonus paid by the State for each living birth. sidy, by which money and medical and institutional care D. Prohibition of employment of women for a certain period before and after confinement. II. PUBLIC PROTECTION OF MATERNITY AND INFANCY IN CERTAIN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. (See Save the Youngest.) In estimating the possibilities of such work the achievements of certain foreign countries must be considered: A. New Zealand. Probably no country has so successfully attacked the subject of the reduction of the number of deaths of infants. As a result, in 1919, New Zealand had the lowest infant death rate in the world, 45 per 1,000 live births. The work done has consisted in 1. A widespread dissemination of knowledge affecting the health of women and children, through the work of the New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, founded in 1907. 2. The training of qualified nurses, so-called Plunket nurses, to give instruction and actual assistance to child-bearing women. 3. Maintenance of public-health visiting nurses in all districts. 4. Establishment of hospitals for maternity and infant care. 5. Maternity benefits, as a feature of an old age and invalidity voluntary insurance fund (these were begun in 1910, but have not been generally used). B. England. The work done in England and Wales even during the period of the World War toward safeguarding the life and health of women and small children resulted in reducing infant mortality to the lowest point ever reached in the history of the nation and in establishing the most farreaching public health measures ever attempted. The work includes: 1. Compulsory notification of births within 36 hours. 3. Publication of a detailed Government plan for such measures. 4. Establishment of health visitors. (The number was increased from 600 in 1914 to the equivalent of 1,600 full-time visitors in 1920. This represented one health visitor for every 500 births annually.) 5. Establishment of welfare centers for the medical supervision of expectant and nursing mothers and children under 5 years of age. (In 1920, there were 1,754 of these in England and Wales alone.) |