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Working With Husband? ‘Occupation’s Wife’ And Married Women’s Employment in the Censuses in England and Wales Between 1851 And 1911

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

Women played a vital role in British industrialization. However, studies of women’s work are often hindered by data limitation. The British censuses provide an unparalleled opportunity to study women’s work and its impact systematically. However, the reliability of the census recording of female employment is still under debate. This articles aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by examining a particular census recording concerning married women who were supposedly working with their husbands, i.e. ‘occupation’s wife’. By analyzing a new source of big data, namely 100 percent sample of Census Enumerators’ Books and published census reports, this article shows that the recording of ‘occupation’s wife’ was not informative about the level of married women’s labour in the form of working together with their husbands in the same trade. Given the important fact that married women recorded as ‘occupation’s wife’ constituted the largest group of married women with any occupational titles in the censuses, the results presented in this article suggest a re-assessment of some of the empirical foundations in the studies of married women’s work.

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Keywords

50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields, 5 Gender Equality, 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Journal Title

Social Science History

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1527-8034
1527-8034

Volume Title

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/M010953/1)