Hours of Labor. by Lazare TeperReview by: David WeintraubJournal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 27, No. 179 (Sep., 1932), pp. 354-355Published by: American Statistical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2278186 .

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354 American Statistical Association [118

Hours of Labor, by Lazare Teper. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 1932. 92 pp. The earliest industrial communities the world over adopted as the normal

work day the sunrise-to-sunset system then prevalent in agriculture. But everywhere, the gradual introduction of machine processes, bringing with it immeasurably large increases in productivity, coupled with insistent demands for shorter hours by the working classes and forces of reform in the interest of health, safety, morals, general welfare, and profits, brought about a gradual restriction in the working day and the working week. Legislation, especially in the United States, had only little to do with the movement and that little chiefly by way of affording protection to women and children and by incorporating into the law what had otherwise already been widely accomplished.

Mr. Teper's study concerns itself only slightly with the above aspects of the movement for shorter hours and concentrates upon the measurements of that movement in the United States between 1890 and 1928 (Part II) and the relation- ship that existed between the hours of labor and various other factors in the manufacturing industries of Baltimore in 1928 and the state of North Carolina in 1925-1926 (Part I).

In the first part of the monograph Mr. Teper submits his material (consisting of data on the size of establishments, hours of work and some wage information, covering firms employing five or more workers) to a statistical analysis which consists mainly in determining averages (medians) of such factors as hours of work, etc., and constructing correlation tables for the purpose of ascertaining whether there existed a determinable relationship between any two of those fac- tors. He concludes that "the Maryland and North Carolina figures do not confirm the hypothesis" (set up by H. L. Moore and others) "that the size of the establishment affects the hours of labor favorably or unfavorably"; that there is a tendency for the hourly rates of wages to vary inversely with the number of hours of work; that in North Carolina the median daily remuneration in no case is higher in plants working longer hours than in shorter-hour plants; and that "in Baltimore there seemed to be a tendency for establishments working either shortest or longest hours to employ mostly men."

The second part consists of an attempt to revise and bring up to date the studies on hours of work made by I. M. Rubinow and P. H. Douglas and F. Lamberson. Though the author uses data which, in scope, differ somewhat from those em- ployed by his forerunners and a statistical technique which is far less refined (simple arithmetic averages of relatives) the results are surprisingly similar. Mr. Teper's index of hours in no case differs from Professor Douglas' by more than two points, the average deviation being one point. All of which should not necessarily be taken as corroborating evidence of the correctness of either index. Objections could be raised as to the representativeness of the data and as to the purpose which is served by piecing heterogeneous material together by either of the two methods employed-or by any other method for that matter.

An example may serve to explain. Among the eleven industries included in Mr. Teper's sample is one industry called "Marble and Stone." For the period 1890-1907, the author uses data derived from employment and payroll statistics

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119] Reviews 355

collected by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics which show a decline in the hours of work from 54.7 per week to 50.4 or 8 per cent. From 1907 to 1928 he employs the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics data on "Union Scale of Wages and Hours of Labor" which show a decline of some 1.7 per cent during that period, making a total decline of 9.6 per cent (see table 5). We should, therefore, expect the full-time week to have declined from 54.7 hours in 1890 to 49.4 hours in 1928. Instead, table 10, giving "average full-time hours of labor per week in eleven industries in 1890 and in 1928," has 44.0 hours, the published United States Bureau of Labor Statistics figure for Marble and Stone, or 19.6 per cent below the 1890 figure, instead of the 9.6 per cent indicated by the index number. Under the column headed "per cent decrease during the period" the figure given is indeed 9.6 per cent but that undoubtedly is a typographical error.

DAVID WEINTRAUB

National Bureau of Economic Research

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