of age and it is from this group that most of the additional workers will have to come.

Information on the characteristics of the potential labor reserve among women has been made available from a special tabulation prepared by the Bureau of the Census on the basis of its sample. Monthly Report on the Labor Force. A detailed classification of women engaged in their own home housework in July 1943 showing age, farm and nonfarm residence, and presence of children under 14 in the household is presented in chart 1.

It should be pointed out that the term "engaged in own home housework" is applied to any woman who gives as her reason for not actively seeking work the fact that she was "primarily occupied with housework in her own home." Since there is no limitation on the number of homemakers in any one home, there are cases where two women report themselves as homemakers within a single household. As a matter of fact, the tendency toward more than one homemaker in the household is accentuated during the summer months, when a large number of girls on summer vacation from school report themselves as homemakers. Aside from this seasonal factor, there has also been the effect of "doubling up" arising out of the movement of

CHART I

WOMEN ENGAGED IN OWN HOME HOUSEWORK

CLASSIFIED BY AGE, FARM AND NONFARM RESIDENCE,

AND PRESENCE OF CHILDREN UNDER 14 IN THE HOUSEHOLD

servicemen's wives back to the parents' household-a factor which will increase in importance with the drafting of fathers.

All of this must be kept in mind in interpreting the data classifying women engaged in their own home housework by presence of children under 14 in the household. It should be pointed out that women classified as having children under 14 in the household are not all necessarily responsible for the care of those children who, of course, may not even be their own. In July, for example, two-thirds of the homemakers 14-19 years of age were classified as having children under 14 in the household. The classification by presence of children is also less meaningful for the older age groups. The survey showed that in July 1943 there were almost a million homemakers 55 years and over with children under 14 in the household. Obviously few of this group were mothers of those children.

Effect of Dependency Status on Labor-Market Participation

The extent to which the presence of children under 14 in the household affects labor-market participation among women is shown in the accompanying table and in chart 2. The worker rate among non

farm women 20-54 years of age without children under 14 in the household was double that of the corresponding group with children under 14 in July 1943. Women without children under 14 had a worker rate twice that of women with children in the age groups 20-24 and 35-44. Among those 25-34 years of age (where dependency status is most meaningful because most of the children under 14 are to be found among women in this age group and the presence of children under 14 in the household more nearly reflects actual responsibility for their care) the proportion of women in the labor force without children was three times as high as that for women with children under 14 in the household.

Differences in worker rates on the basis of dependency status were not so marked among the women residing in farm areas. The sharpest difference (as was the case among nonfarm workers) was among those 25-34 years, where the worker rate for women without children under 14 was double that for women with children.3

Percent of Female Noninstitutional Population 20-54 Years of Age in Civilian Labor Force, by Residence and Presence of Children Under 14 in Household, July 1943 1

1 From unpublished data of Special Surveys Division, Bureau of the Census.

These labor-force differences are minimized in the sense that more refined data contrasting worker rates among women actually responsible for the care of children and those who do not have that responsibility would show wider differences in labor-market rates.

Labor Conditions in Rumania

Summary

RUMANIA in 1930 had 18,057,028 people, of whom 10,542,900 were gainfully occupied. The greater number of those gainfully occupied were engaged in agriculture, fishing, and mining. Only 7.2 percent of the gainfully occupied were found in the manufacturing and mechanical industry. Unemployment during the early 1930's was estimated at from 50,000 to 130,000, but by the time Rumania entered the present war, unemployment was virtually nonexistent. Placement of the unemployed was the chief duty of 32 public employment offices. Wages were fixed by collective bargaining, in considerable part. They varied from 6 lei (6 cents) per hour for unskilled labor to 45 lei (45 cents) per hour for linotype men. Wage deductions for social insurance and taxes ranged from 17 to 21 percent. A pre-war basic workweek of 48 hours was lengthened in some instances to 72 hours in 1941. In general, employees were to be paid 25 percent more than their basic pay for overtime work.

Labor unions, until 1938, played an important part in the regulation of relations between employers and employees. After 1938, the State assumed charge of all labor relations. Collective agreements constituted the basis for such relations. When a collective agreement could not be reached, the use of conciliation and arbitration was required by law.

Cooperative associations included credit, consumers' agricultural, and forestry and other types of productive associations. Rumanian cooperatives suffered as a result of the present war, and the territorial losses suffered by Rumania in 1940 resulted in a decrease in the number of cooperative associations and in membership.

Social insurance in Rumania covered sickness, accidents, maternity, invalidity, old age, and death. Members of an insured person's family were also entitled to protection against many of these misfortunes. In general, social insurance was made compulsory for all workers whose monthly wages did not exceed 8,000 lei.

Historical Background

Subsequent to World War I, Rumania was the scene of political confusion and of very important territorial and population changes. It is essential to bear these factors in mind in attempting to interpret labor developments during this troubled period. Various political parties Liberals, National Peasant Party, Nationalist Democrats, Conservative Democrats, Conservatives, the Peoples Party, and the National Party competed with one another for control of the nation. Successive issues over which these parties struggled consisted of expropriation of estates, fiscal reform, treaties with Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, adoption of the constitutions of 1923 and 1938, and the choice of a ruler.

On October 15, 1922, Ferdinand I and Queen Marie assumed the crowns of United Rumania. Ferdinand died in 1927, and as Crown Prince Carol had renounced his rights to the throne in 1925, Carol's

son, Prince Michael, became king under a regency. Carol returned to the throne on June 8, 1930, and was proclaimed King Carol II. He fled into exile on September 6, 1940, after surrendering his power to Gen. Ion Antonescu. Rumania thereupon became a pro-Fascist military dictatorship, only insignificant authority being vested in King Michael, who ascended the throne for a second time.

The population of Rumania has fluctuated greatly since 1914. In that year its citizens numbered only about 7,600,000, but under the peace treaties at the conclusion of World War I territorial acquisitions were such that by 1930 Rumania had a total population of 18,057,028. In 1940, however, as internal disorder grew in Rumania and as the European war moved toward the Balkans, Rumania was forced to return much of the territory acquired after the other war. As a result, that nation lost in all an estimated 38,825 square miles of territory with a population of approximately 6,265,000, thereby reducing her population to about 13,668,000. Ethnological statistics are not available for Rumania as recently as 1940, but there is information for 1930 which gives some indication of the composition of the population of that nation. Of the total population (18,057,028) at that time, 13,800,000, or about 76 percent, were of pure Rumanian blood and origin. These people were distributed fairly evenly throughout the nation. Of the remainder, 1,300,000 Magyars inhabited Transylvania and parts of the Banat, 800,000 Germans were living in and around the old Saxon and Alsatian towns of the Carpathian slopes and of the Banat, 1,100,000 Jews were scattered throughout the country, but formed a large percentage of the population in Bukovina and a majority of the inhabitants of Transylvania; 170,000 Turks, 290,000 Bulgars, and some 30,000 Tatars and gypsies were living in Moldavia, Walachia, and the Dobrudja. Some 37,000 Poles were found in Bukovina and neighboring regions. The remainder of the people included 792,000 Ukranians in Bessarabia and other Slavs in the northern departments.

Employment Conditions

Agriculture is the main industry of Rumania, with Old Rumania and Bessarabia producing the greatest amount of the chief crops which are maize, wheat, barley, oats, and rye. Tobacco, a State monopoly which in 1925 produced an income of more than 3,404,000,000 lei, is grown mainly in the Danube plains.

Petroleum is the most important mineral, but Rumania also has deposits of coal, gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, antimony, iron ore, chrome, manganese, and pyrites.

The fisheries of the Danube region are a commercial asset. Next to the Volga fisheries, those of the lower Danube are the most extensive and the richest in Europe. On the other hand, the sea fisheries on the Rumanian coast are negligible.

The principal centers of industry are Ploesti for petroleum refining, Resita for iron and steel works, and Bucharest, Timisoara, Arad, Cluj, and Jassy for textile manufacture (although the textile industry is widely distributed over the country). Bucharest has other varied industries, also, and is the principal commercial and financial center.