Käthe Leichter, How do Viennese home workers live?: a survey of the working and living conditions of a thousand Viennese home workers. Published by the Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte in Wien (Wien:Verl. „Arbeit und Wirtschaft”) 1928
author: Käthe Leichter
source date: 1928
language: eng
availability: This object is available for free download. According to good scholarly practice, when reproducing or using the images, please cite the source and name the Vienna Library in City Hall as the owning institution.

Housing conditions

For no class of workers is the question of housing of such vital importance than for the home workers. For home workers, their home is also their place of labor. If it is cramped, they must live, sleep, eat and carry out their professional work in the same room. The long working hours typical of home-based labor carry out his professional work. The long working hours associated with home workers, the large number of children in homeworking families, the involvement of family members, and the installation of machines exacerbate this problem.

Our survey shows that the typical home of a home worker is a Viennese proletarian dwelling, consisting only of a room and a kitchen. Even if it is already thought of as to small by the married factory worker who goes out to work outside the home, it is even more so for the home worker, who not only spends his private life here, but also his professional life. The differences within the individual branches of home-based labor are very small here. In all cases, the living room-kitchen-apartment arrangement prevails. In addition, there are often dwellings that consist only of a cabinet and a kitchen, so that 43.9 per cent of home workers' dwellings consist of only one room other than the kitchen, which then serves as a bedroom, living room and workroom. Only pieceworkers have apartments consisting of a room, a cabinet and a kitchen. However, this occupation, which requires own workshop equipment, frequent employment of auxiliary staff and, to a greater extent, that of women and children, requires more space. The fact that a separate room is used as a workshop in addition to the actual living quarters, is only found among piece masters. And even then only to a very limited extent.

The dwelling, which comprises rooms, a cabinet and a kitchen, and thus already belongs to the better dwellings, is found at the pieceworkers, but also frequently in the laundry industry, as well as in clothing manufacture, embroidery and paper manufacture. It is also particularly to the large number of children of female home workers, and are still proletarian dwellings. Larger flats, which could be considered somewhat more comfortable can be found to a greater extent only in embroidery, where it can be explained by the influx of people from middle class. But even there they are a minority. Cases of three or four rooms next to the kitchen, where a practical separation of work and living spaces would be possible, remain absolutely isolated, as are cases of a detached house inhabited by home workers.

All the more frequent are the cases of the most extreme housing deficiencies. Families of home workers who only have one room, a kitchen, whose refuge is a cellar or the poorhouse, female home workers who pursue their profession as subtenants or lodgers. For example, in embroidery, where it is often the case that the only living space – a room, a cabinet or a kitchen – can be explained by the larger number of single younger female home workers, and in the knitting and hosiery industry, the appalling housing state in rural areas that make it so frequent that entire families of home workers live in only one room. The number of female home workers who are subtenants is particularly high in the embroidery industry, where they work during the day on rented beds, are more common among tailors, embroiderers and felt shoe stitchers. More than a tenth of all female home workers are forced their me.ager earnings to further reduce their living space by taking in subtenants. This is most common in the chemical industry, where wages are somewhat higher, but the irregularity of the wage forces workers to look for a permanent source of income. The same applies to the clothing industry. In embroidery, it is precisely the somewhat slightly larger apartments that make it possible to take in lodgers. In paper garment manufacturing, low wages are a compelling factor, even though it is precisely here that there are found families with the most children. In general, the better apartments that are located next to the worst apartments are most frequently found, corresponding to the social differences, in the the embroidery industry, then also among pieceworkers, while

Table 13: housing conditions

	1 Room	1 Cabinet	Room, Cabinet	Room, Kitchen	Room, Cabinet, Kitchen	Cabinet, Kitchen	2 Rooms, Kitchen	2 Rooms, Cabinet, Kitchen	1 Room, 2 Cabinets, Kitchen	2 Rooms	2 Rooms, 2 Cabinets, Kitchen	3 Rooms, Kitchen	Kitchen	Cellar	poorhouse	Settlers home	Evicted	Own Workshop	As Subtenant	As lodger	Subtenant taken in	N.A.
	In per cent
Clothing industry	1.41	2.82	.	52.11	23.94	4.22	5.64	1.41	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	2.82	8.45	16.90	.
Laundry	2.35	8.24	0.59	38.67	31.27	5.9	4.31	1.77	.	.	.	.	0.59	.	0.59	.	.	.	4.31	1.77	10.6	0.95
Embroidery . . . . .	3.91	8.38	0.56	32.40	20.11	7.82	7.26	6.71	0.56	.	.	.	0.56	.	.	.	.	.	6.15	7.26	11.93	4.47
Knit- wear . . . . .	22.99	8.11	2.70	31.98	17.11	5.86	2.25	1.80	1.80	0.90	.	.	1.35	.	.	.	.	.	2.70	1.35	8.50	1.80
Chemical Industry . . . . . .	.	.	.	47.82	13.04	8.70	13.04	.	.	.	.	.	.	4.35	.	4.35	.	.	.	.	21.72	.
Paper production	4.36	8.69	.	46.38	20.29	8.69	8.69	.	.	.	.	.	.	1.65	.	.	.	.	.	1.65	11.60	.
Leather wear . . .	.	8.33	.	41.67	16.67	25	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	8.33	.	.
Diverse . . . . .	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Homeworkers in total	8.62	7.57	1.31	38.12	21.55	6.92	5.22	2.87	0.65	0.26	.	.	0.65	0.26	0.13	0.13	.	.	3.65	3.52	11.10	2.22
piecemaster, tailor . . .	0.46	.	.	34.72	38.88	27.41	10.65	2.78	0.92	.	0.46	0.92	.	.	.	.	0.46	0.92	0.46	.	.	0.92
piecemaster, Laundry . . . .	.	.	.	16.66	50	.	16.66	5.56	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	11.12	.	.	.	.
Homeworkers und piecemasters . .	6.7	5.9	1	37	25.5	6.9	6.6	2.9	0.7	0.2	0.1	0.5	0.5	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	.	2.7	.	1.9

in most other branches of home labor, the standard of living is more even, evenly low.[^1]

[^1: *) It is interesting to note that, according to a study by the Labor Statistics Office from 1901, the living conditions of home workers were more favorable than they are today—at that time, three-room apartments were the norm for home workers. In contrast, according to the survey from that time, 16 percent of home workers took in lodgers, compared to only 11 percent according to our survey.]

The housing conditions in the individual branches of home labor are further exacerbated by the circumstances of production. In the clothing and linen manufacture and knitwear production, the noise of the sewing or knitting machines, dust and wool fibers, in felt shoe production, felt dust, in paper manufacture and chemical industry, the smell of rubber and adhesives, in leather goods manufacturing, the smell of hides and leather fill the air. In all cases, there is material that takes up a lot of space in rubber coat production, there is a constant fire hazard due to handling petrol – all this in apartments that often consist of only one room and a kitchen, where two rooms and a kitchen are considered the better apartments, which are also restricted by the presence of subtenants. In these dwellings, women have the hopeless task of keeping the household in order, alongside their professional work – usually more difficult than if they were to work outside the home – to provide the children with a place to play or study, and ensure they get a good night's sleep. This is precisely what many women hope to gain from working at home: to combine household and motherly duties with their professional work, which is being made impossible through the narrowness of the flats as well as the combination of work, sleeping and living spaces for adults and children. Only by considering the housing conditions the picture of the social conditions under which home workers live and work is completed.