Proportion of total contacts who had (a)registered
(b)had interview

In Question 3, those who replied were asked: “What happened when you handed in your name for a Service?” The replies are as follows:-

The 29 cases in the above Table who have volunteered and are now waiting to hear further, and the five cases who said, that “Nothing happened; I have not been sent for”, state that they have been waiting for the following periods:

The numbers are quite small, and no firm conclusions can be drawn from them. Those handing in their names over a year ago might have got out of touch by one reason or another; they might have changed their address, or correspondence might have been lost in transit owing to air raids, and some part of the omission could possibly be due to earlier imperfections in the calling-up organisation. There is an indication that the length of time elapsing before a would-be entrant is received by a Service, which, if protracted is so unsettling to them, could be made the subject of a further inquiry.

Willingness to join the Uniformed Services, or to do other War Work

Willing

67%

Unwilling

32%

Don’t Know

1%

Question 4: What do you feel about joining a Service, or doing other War work?

While the majority, some 67%, of women interviewed state they are willing to enter for war work either in the Women’s Services or munitions, etc., such willingness is by no means the same in all ages, and the tendency is for the older women to be less willing. This is due mainly to their sense of domestic responsibility, as is shown in the response to Question 5.

On the following page the data is analysed by occupation and region. Having regard to the margins of statistical error, most differences are not significant, but the housewife of whatever class is shown to be significantly less willing than women in other occupations, and, as to regional differences, the S. and S.E. regions have a low proportion of women willing to join a Service.

Willingness to join Services or War Work - by Occupation and by Region

Note :

Occupations

“Independent”............of independent means

“Housewife A. or B.”...........housewife of middle or upper classes

“Housewife C. or D.”........housewife of working classes

“At Home, A.B. or C.D..........otherwise unoccupied and living at home.

Objections to War Work, or to joining a Service

Question 5: If you have objection to War Work, or to joining a Service, what is it?

A great many informants gave more than one objection. The percentages are based on the total objections mentioned.

Miscellaneous objections : I object to being with a crowd, 10: I dislike uniform, 7: Conscientious and religious objections, 6: Would not like rough work, 6: Scope for my profession too limited, 5: Compulsion is fairer, 4: Told if I leave job I should lose it after war, 4: Doesn’t like idea, 4: Exempted - necessary to employer, 3: Girls are pushed into unsuitable jobs, 3: Student - want to complete studies, 3: Could not see husband when on leave, 2: Too old for drastic change, 1: Afraid of new ventures, 1: Miscellaneous, 13. The objections vary with age. For the girls and younger women they are that they do not want to leave home, or the security of their home, and that their family would object. For the older age groups, however, it is a sense of domestic responsibility, that they have dependants to care for, including young children, and that they would not like leaving home (mainly for those reasons). These together amount to 63% of the total objections.

The question of getting women into the Women’s Services or War Work is a question of relieving them of their domestic responsibility.

The group that stated they were “already in war work” should, ideally, have been omitted and the count taken on the remainder.

Much of the interviewing, however, was done in such places as Ilkley, Harrogate, Brecon, Maidenhead, and the like, and there is some doubt that all who returned this answer were in actual fact in War work or working to their full capacity. The item has therefore been retained as a reminder of this.

Choice of Service

32%

War Work in office or factory

25%

W.A.A.F.

17%

Other Services

16%

W.R.N.S.

10%

A.T.S.

Question 6: If you have no objection which would you prefer to join? - War Work in Office or Factory, W.A.A.F., A.T.S., W.R.N.S., Others?

The 686 women of the total interviewed who expressed willingness to join a Service gave their choice of service as above. In a number of cases a first and second, and even a third choice was given, the total mentions of Service aggregating to 835.

Reasons given for choice of War Work or Service

Question 7: Why do you prefer this? - War Work in Factory or Office.

Auxiliary Territorial Service

Women's Auxiliary Air Force

Women’s Royal Naval Service

The reasons given for wanting to join other Services are all obvious, e.g. the Land Army is chosen for its open air nature and for the sake of living in the country, the Nursing Services for the opportunity of learning or practising nursing, and so on.

Objections to War Work (in factories and office)

Objections to Women’s (Uniformed) Services

Question 8. If you have any objection to the Women’s Services, what is it?

Miscellaneous objections common to all Services. The actual number of mentions in connection with the A.T.S. is given: all these are below 1%.

Objections Suggested by Other People

Question 9. Have you heard anyone else say this kind of thing? If so, was it a relative, a friend, a friend in the Forces?

By asking this question it was hoped to trace whether the objections to War Work or to the women’s uniformed Services were suggested or sustained by the comments of other people. The results are, for the first part of the question:

The sample does not give small enough degrees of statistical error for the variations by age to be significant, but it is very evident that more than half of those having objections to the women’s uniformed Services have had these objections suggested to them by other people.

The second part of the question asked whether the adverse comment had originated from a relative, a friend, or a friend in the Forces, The analysed results are as follows:

The gossip of friend and relative, and the discouragement of the man in the Forces is brought out in this Table.

Choice of work companions - by age

With Men

19%

Only with women

11%

Do not mind

58%

Prefer mixed

12%

Question 10. If you could choose, would you prefer to work alongside men,

only with women, or don’t you mind which?

The Table shows the reaction to this question to be consistently the same for the particular age groups considered. Statistically there is no evidence of variation between ages, and seven out of ten women either do not mind which sex they work with or prefer to work with men and women, one woman out of ten wants to work with women, and two out of ten prefer to work with men only.

An analysis by occupation is given on tho following page.

Choice of work companions - by occupation

There is much interest in this Table if the background of the occupations is considered. The main conclusion, as shown in the analysis by age, is that seven out of ten women do not mind with whom they work. It is interesting to see that the occupational category showing the highest preference for working alongside men is that of the skilled clerical worker, while only 2% of the managerial and professional women give a preference for working with women only.

Attitude to Conscription

Would Not Mind

17%

Would go willingly

59%

Would resent

24%

Question 11. If compulsion was introduced for bringing women into the Services, what would be your attitude? Would you go willingly, would you not mind, or would you resent it?

Of those who said they were willing to join a Service (Question 4), 68% said that they would go willingly if compulsion was introduced, 17% they would not mind, while 15% said they would resent it. The result is shown in the diagram above. This means that from 8 to 9 out of every 10 suitable and willing prospective entrants to the Services are apparently only waiting for conscription, or the removal of their economic difficulties.

An examination of the total sample of 1,031 women, in which those willing and unwilling to join a Service are combined, gives much the same picture, as shown in the following Table where the answers are analysed by age.

There is a tendency for the proportion resenting compulsion to vary with age. The younger age groups show less resentment at, and greater willingness, to accept conscription.

Attitude to Conscription - by occupation

The following table analyses the data by occupation

It is evident here that age should be taken into account, for it appears to be the disturbing factor in this analysis by occupation and social class. It will be seen that the least resentment is shown by the occupations of the lower social classes (e.g. skilled and unskilled factory work, domestic service), and the greatest resentment by the higher social classes (e.g. “of independent means,” and A. and B. housewife.) This is not true of the housewife of the C. and D. classes where we have a low social class with a high resentment. It is probable that the reason for this is that the age groups of this class are, within the sample, older.

The main fact, however, is that the majority of women, of whatever occupation, are in favour of compulsion.

Newspaper Readership

Question 12. What daily, Sunday, local and evening newspapers do you read regularly?

This question was asked for its interest in connection with publicity. It shows what newspapers are read by women between the ages of 17½ and 43, who might be considered as suitable for enrolment into the Women’s Services. It therefore reflects the newspaper readership of a particular group of society, and care should be taken when comparing these results with those of other media surveys, which usually deal with society in general.

“Local newspapers”, as above, includes both daily and weekly local newspapers.

Favourite Times of Listening to Radio - Weekdays

Question 13. When is your favourite time for listening to the Radio?

The purpose of this question was to find the optimum time for carrying a message to girls and women by radio. It was necessary, in view of the length of the questionnaire, to ask one simple question, so that it was not possible to employ the highly developed technique used in radio penetration studies. The simplest approach was to. ask, as was done in the above question, what was the favourite time of listening.

It is probable, in the above table of weekday listening, that Saturday listenership is greater than that of Monday to Friday, but not to such an extent as to disturb the general findings.

The Table shows definitely that the evening is the favourite time of listening, with 9.0 to 9.30 p.m. as the peak common to all ages. It will be noted that the percentage giving the answers “Listen to News only”, “Listen to News and Dance Music” and those saying that they listen all day (although this last should be taken with some reserve), should be added to the appropriate time. If this is done it will be seen that from 9.0 to 9.30 p.m. is still the peak, and therefore the best time for contacting this section of the radio audience.

Favourite Time of listening to Radio - Sunday

Question 13. When is your favourite time for listening to the Radio?

Note: The items “Listen to News only ^“ , etc., should be allocated to their appropriate times. As with weekdays, it is shown above that the evening generally is the favourite time of listening, with the 9.0 p.m. news as the peak common to all ages.

Unaided remembrance of relevant advertising

Posters

60%

NewsPapers

59.6%

Films

41.8%

Radio

25.7%

Magazines

17.8%

Exhibitions

5.8%

Other media

3.2%

Question 14 ^: What advertising or announcements have you noticed concerning Women ^‘ s Services or War Work?

Many informants recalled more than one media, the average recollected . being 2.1.

Informants were additionally asked to give details of particular items Recalled. The .analysis of this follows, medium by medium.

Unaided remembrance of relevant advertising

Adequacy of Information about Services

Question 15. Do you feel you have enough information about the Services to come to a decision on joining?

Of the total number of 899 women to whom this question was put, 439, or 48.8% replied in the affirmative . This represents the answers of those women unwilling, as well as more willing to join a Service or do other War Work.

Of the 686 women who replied to Question 4 that they were willing to join a Service, 325, or 54% stated they had enough information.

The error due to sampling can be put at ± 4% so that the proportion answering “Yes” to the question could be between 50% and 58%.

From this it is evident that about half of those willing to join a Service feel they have enough information to come to a decision about joining.