Source
Gainfully Employed Persons and their Dependents by Economic Sector (in thousands)
Economic | Year | Total | Number | in % | Family | Gainfully | in % of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A. Agriculture1 | 1882 | 8,236 | 2,535 | 30.8 | 10,564 | 18,801 | 41.6 |
– | 1895 | 8,293 | 2,753 | 33.2 | 9 834 | 18,127 | 35.0 |
– | 1907 | 9,883 | 4,5999 | 46.5 | 7,634 | 17,517 | 28.4 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
B. Industry2,8 | 1882 | 6,396 | 1,127 | 17.6 | 9,359 | 15,756 | 34.8 |
– | 1895 | 8,281 | 1,521 | 18.4 | 11,652 | 19,933 | 38.5 |
– | 1907 | 11,256 | 2,104 | 18.7 | 14,799 | 26,055 | 42.2 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
C. Trade
and | 1882 | 1,570 | 298 | 19.0 | 2,665 | 4,236 | 9.4 |
– | 1895 | 2,339 | 580 | 24.8 | 3,344 | 5,683 |
|
– | 1907 | 3,478 | 931 | 26.8 | 4,458 | 7,935 | 12.9 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
D.
Domestic | 1882 | 1,723 | 1,466 | 85.1 | 539 | 2,261 | 5.0 |
– | 1895 | 1,772 | 1,548 | 87.4 | 453 | 2,225 | 4.3 |
– | 1907 | 1,736 | 1,570 | 90.4 | 320 | 2,056 | 3.3 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
E. Administration, | 1882 | 1,031 | 115 | 11.2 | 1,027 | 2,058 | 4.6 |
– | 1895 | 1,426 | 177 | 12.4 | 1,218 | 2,644 | 5.1 |
– | 1907 | 1,739 | 288 | 16.6 | 1,445 | 3,184 | 5.2 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
Total | 1882 | 18,957 | 5,542 | 29.2 | 24,154 | 43,111 | 95.3 |
– | 1895 | 22,110 | 6,578 | 29.8 | 26,501 | 48,611 | 93.9 |
– | 1907 | 28,092 | 9,493 | 33.8 | 28,655 | 56,747 | 91.9 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
F. Those without | 1882 | 1,354 | 702 | 51.8 | 756 | 2,117 | 4.7 |
– | 1895 | 2,143 | 1,116 | 52.1 | 1,016 | 3,159 | 6.1 |
– | 1907 | 3,405 | 1,792 | 52.6 | 1,568 | 4,973 | 8.1 |
– | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
Total | 1882 | 20,311 | 6,247 | 30.7 | 24,911 | 45,222 | 100.0 |
– | 1895 | 24,253 | 7,694 | 31.7 | 27,517 | 51,770 | 100.0 |
– | 1907 | 31,497 | 11,285 | 35.8 | 30,223 | 61,721 | 100.0 |
1 Includes gardening, animal husbandry, forestry, and fishing.
2 Includes mining, construction, and trades.
3 Includes restaurants and taverns.
4 Domestics who live either with or separate from their employers (including various kinds of wage labor). For a definition, see Statistik des Deutschen Reichs 202 (1907), p. 117. The number of persons engaged in various kinds of wage labor was 235,506 in 1882; 200,919 in 1895; and 155,696 in 1907.
5 Including church and municipal administration.
6 Includes individuals living from their own assets, pensions, and subsidies, and those residing in various charitable institutions; school-age children, students, and wards living outside of their families; persons without individual occupations and those for whom no occupational information was provided.
7 In the individual
occupation categories A, B, and C, gainfully employed persons are
divided into (a) self-employed, including executive civil servants
and other kinds of business managers (owner, proprietor, co-owner
or co-proprietor, lessee, hereditary lessee, master tradesmen,
entrepreneur, director, administrator).
(b) non-executive
civil servants, generally, administrative and supervisory
personnel with scientific, technical, or business training, as
well as accounting and office personnel.
(c) other
assistants, apprentices, factory workers, wage laborers, and day
laborers, including family members working in the trades and
domestics.
(d) family members who have no regular occupation
and do not live in other households. The allocation is done
according to the primary occupation and social standing of the
gainfully employed person who provides the support and in whose
household the individual lives.
8 According to estimates by the present authors [Hohorst, et. al.], the occupational category “worker” included 166,000 salesclerks (of whom approximately 32,000 were women) in 1882, 268,868 (81,838 women) in 1895 (according to Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, vol. 111), and 406,385 (173,611 women) in 1907 (according to Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, vol. 203), all of whom, in modern terms, should be counted among salaried employees. – In sector B, foremen were still counted among workers in 1882; after 1895, they were counted among salaried employees.
9 Especially in the category “Agriculture (A),” the “helping family members”—almost entirely women—are incompletely recorded in the statistics from 1882 and 1895. As a result, the dramatic increase in the percentage of women from 33.2% to 46.5% of all gainfully employed individuals in agriculture between 1895 and 1907 was caused entirely by a change in the definition of “gainful” employment. According to Hoffmann, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft, pp. 182-84, 210, if one applies the recording methods of 1907, there were already 3,935,000 women employed in agriculture in 1882, and 4,153,000 in 1895. For trade and the restaurant business (part of C), Hoffmann—on account of a more accurate accounting of “helping family members”—arrives at a much higher figure, especially for female workers. By contrast, deviations from the official statistics are substantially fewer in “Industry and Mining (B).” If we use the figures from Hoffmann (pp. 205, 210), which correct the official statistics, the percentage of female workers among the total number of the gainfully employed was: 35.91% in 1882; 34.86% in 1895; and 34.88% in 1907.
Source: Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter, eds., Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1870-1914, vol. 2. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1975, p. 66. The statistics were compiled by the editors and drawn from the following sources: (for 1882) Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, new version, vol. 2 (1884) and new version, vol. 4, 3 (1884); (for 1895) Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, new version, vol. 111 (1899); and (for 1907) Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, vol. 203 (1910).