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small difference between the principal economic groups of the
population. There is especially in the numerous small farmers’
and country artisans’ class a considerable proportion whose financial
conditions do not differ from those of the ordinary working-man.
It is also an important fact, from a social-economic point of
view, that the average income of employers is even less than the
average pay of the employees. A comparatively trifling decrease
in the earnings of the employers would therefore bring a large
number of them over into the ranks of the employees, or even
of the working-men.
Labour-wages have, on the whole, been rising, though in
different degrees for the country labourer and the town labourer,
and also for working-men in the various branches of trade. The
percentage of artisan apprentices, for instance, with an annual
income of from 200 to 299 kr., has risen, between 1885 and 1894,
from 9.3 to 14, and in the income-group 300 to 499 kr., from 7.9 to
10.7. The percentage of seamen in the income-group 200 to 399 kr.
has risen from 25.9 to 31.3, and so on. In the case of domestic
servants and factory girls, there is also an improvement in the
incomes, principally owing to the decrease in the percentage in
the lowest income-groups. According to various statements, it
must be assumed that the working-men’s incomes from 1890 to
1898 have increased by an average of at least 15 per cent.
The women’s — married and unmarried taken together —
average returns for their work are calculated to be about 253 kr.
annually.
In order to illustrate more clearly the standard of life of the
population, it may be stated that the greater part of the earnings of
the working-classes go to the purchase of food. It is calculated that
in general more than 45 per cent of the labour profits go towards
food, and about 15 per cent towards clothes. It is also
well-known [[** sjk bindestrek]] that the expenditure on food diminishes per cent as the
higher income-classes are reached, or in other words — in the
lower wages-classes the toil for the necessities of life is that in which
the activity of life principally centres. The question then arises,
what does living cost in Norway? According to investigations on
this subject, which, however, are scarcely to be relied on, meat,
and drink such as would completely satisfy the requirements for
maintaining the bodily organism in full vigour, might be obtained
for about 160 kr. per head per annum.
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