An Investigation of the Female–Male Wage Gap During the Industrial Revolution in Britain

Burnette, Joyce

doi:10.1111/1468-0289.00054

Cited by 41 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…1 He also measured the degree to which women's wages were lower than those for men, and came to the conclusion that the female dummy before 1560 was much lower than after 1560, which points in the same direction (but unfortunately he did not test this in more detail). Similar evidence for the late 18th and early 19th century has been published by Joyce Burnette (1997Burnette ( , 2008. The agricultural wage data in particular point to a further decline of relative wages of women: between 1760 and 1800 she estimated a wage ratio of about .48, declining to .42 between 1800 and 1840.…”

Section: Relative Wages Of Women 1500-1800supporting

confidence: 69%

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

Zanden

2011

The History of the Family

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The paper offers a new explanation for 'the great conundrum', the acceleration of population growth in England in the second half of the 18th century. It is argued that it was not only population growth that was 'different' in England, but the stagnation of the rise of literacy and of human capital in general, seems to be an anomaly of this period. This 'conundrum' has been explained in the following way. It is demonstrated that in England the gender wage gap increased a lot during the early modern period, which was caused by: (a) the switch from post Black Death labour scarcity to labour surplus, which in particular harmed the economic position of women, and (b) changes in the structure of agriculture, leading to the rise of large-scale, capital intensive and labour extensive farms, which had a very limited demand for female (wage) labour. This is also suggested by the fact that on the Continent (in the Netherlands) a much smaller decline of female wages occurred, because there family farms continued to be quite important. Moreover, the decline of English wages had important effects on its demographic development. It helps to explain the decline of the average age of marriage of in particular women between 1600 and 1800, and the related increase in fertility that occurred in this period -resulting in a much faster rate of population growth after 1750 than elsewhere in Western-Europe. It also helps to explain the stagnation in human capital formation that occurred during the 18th and early 19th century -again a feature peculiar for the English development in these years. The explanation of 'the great conundrum' is therefore intimately linked to the changing position of women on the labour market and within marriage.

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Section: Relative Wages Of Women 1500-1800supporting

confidence: 69%

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

Zanden

2011

The History of the Family

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“…After all, domestic servants received payment in kind in the form of food and shelter (Theresa McBride 1974;Joyce Burnette 1997). I have therefore added the annual price of a one man's bare-bones consumer basket to their annual wage (Table 5).…”

Section: Real Wagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marriages are Made in Kitchens: The European Marriage Pattern and Life-Cycle Servanthood in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam

Boter

2016

Feminist Economics

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Due to methodological difficulties of historical research on women's labor, little is known of women's contribution to household incomes in preindustrial economies. This article is the first to use domestic servants' wages, as documented in account books from the period 1752-1805, to estimate the capital that women could accumulate during their years of service before marriage. As such, it offers a new perspective on women's contribution to household resources. Results show that servants working for the most well-off households in eighteenth-century Amsterdam could save a marriage budget that was between one-third and half of the capital that an unskilled man could save in the same amount of time. Furthermore, servants' wages would in theory have been sufficient to support a family of four at the subsistence level, illustrating that women's wages and potential savings cannot be ignored.

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“…Kussmaul, Servants , pp. 143–4; Bardsley, ‘Women's work reconsidered’, p. 29; Burnette, ‘Investigation’, pp. 258–9; Burnette, ‘Wages and employment’, p. 672; Ogilvie, Bitter living , pp.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Berg, ‘What difference’, p. 31; Sharpe, Adapting to capitalism , pp. 139–40; Simonton, History of European women's work , p. 45; Burnette, ‘Investigation’, p. 258. Of course, changes over time occurred, but the inequality was not resolved by industrialization.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic¹

Meerkerk

2009

The Economic History Review

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In the historical debate, the gender wage gap is usually attributed either to productivity differences or to gender discrimination. By analysing a newly constructed series of spinning wages in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, the wages of male and female textile workers for the same work could be investigated. At first sight, the evidence on equal piece rates for spinning men and women seems to rule out wage discrimination. Nevertheless, more deeply rooted gender discrimination resulting from the segmented seventeenth-century labour market restricted women's access to many professions. Exactly this segmentation determined differences in wage earning capacities between men and women. I 'Sex segregation and differences in payment between men and women are highly intertwined. Women's work was usually low-paid, but it also worked the other way around: if a certain position was poorly rewarded, it was usually women's work'. 2 I n recent years, the gender wage gap has received ample attention from economic and social historians. Most historians acknowledge that there have been significant differences in the rewarding of men's and women's work through space and time. For the pre-industrial period, various studies have shown that-spatial and temporal variations notwithstanding-women's wages generally constituted between one-third and two-thirds those of men. 3 Therefore, rather than on the question of if women and men received different payment, the historical debate has usually focused on the nature and causes of these variations in remuneration. 4 Proponents of neo-classical economic theory assume that wage rates depend purely on supply and demand in the labour market. Wages equal the marginal 1 I wish to thank the editors and anonymous referees of the Economic History Review, as well as Bas van Bavel,

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An Investigation of the Female–Male Wage Gap During the Industrial Revolution in Britain

Cited by 41 publications

References 42 publications

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

Marriages are Made in Kitchens: The European Marriage Pattern and Life-Cycle Servanthood in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam

Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic¹

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An Investigation of the Female–Male Wage Gap During the Industrial Revolution in Britain

Cited by 41 publications

References 42 publications

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

The Malthusian intermezzo: Women's wages and human capital formation between the late Middle Ages and the demographic transition of the 19th century

Marriages are Made in Kitchens: The European Marriage Pattern and Life-Cycle Servanthood in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam

Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic1

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Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic¹