Changes in Housework and Their Main Causes (Part 2)

Maid Employment in the 1920s

Abstract

As mentioned previously in the first part, upper middle-class families in Tokyo employed maids in the 1920s. As to the division of work between the housewife and the maid, administrative work was done by the housewife, while physical activities like boiling rice, wiping floors with a wet cloth, washing clothes by hand, etc. were done by the maid.
Of the subjects (employing maids) 93.4% had a maid's room. About the content of meals, 68.9% answered that there was no discrimination against the maid. However, 71.1% of them answered that the family did not sit together with the maid at the same table. Maids were usually given holidays on the New Year and the Bon festival, or once every month. In most cases maids were taught manners and sewing. Their salary was about five yen a month around 1925. Though the majority of the families treated their maid as though she were one of them, there was considerable difference between the master and the maid in social rank.