Different Sources, Different Answers: Aspects on Women's Work in Sundsvall, Sweden, 1860–1893

A historical community approach to social homogamy in the past

“…those owning a shop (fire insurance records are one potential source), or by linking many social and demographic sources covering the same women over their life course. The latter has not often been attempted (for exceptions see Schulz, 2015;Vikström, 2003), but will become more feasible with the rise of large linked sociodemographic databases.…”

Feminist Approaches to Triangulation

“…Lotta Vikström is a feminist historical demographer who seeks to uncover women's occupational work outside their prescribed domestic role as wife and mother in 19th-century Sweden (Vikström, 2003(Vikström, , 2010. There was a strict division of labor between men and women during that period, with women's place defined as the ''home'' sphere and men's as the ''public/occupational'' sphere.…”

“…If we study women by looking into what they were supposed to do according to all the legal, religious, or ideological recommendations they had to consider, it would end into a rather sad history. (Vikström, 2003, p. 255) Vikström's (2003, 2010 research project sought to uncover knowledge about women's working lives by employing a concurrent mixed methods design. The quantitative demographic data she collected were obtained from the parish register (kyrkböcker) for the town of Sundsvall, Sweden.…”

“…It was during this time period that the town of Sundsvall, located on the Swedish coast about 400 kilometers from Stockholm, underwent industrialization as a result of the growing sawmill industry in that area, and this time period saw a demand for women's labor especially in the more ''traditional'' sectors of the economy such as domestic services. As Vikström (2003) notes, these informal sources of historical record ''reveal the voices of the otherwise silent women workers and tell us about their urban context'' (p. 241).…”

“…She noted, ''Sundsvall's newspapers show that women frequently offered their various skills related to typical female sectors as the domestic service, fashion, and the catering trade'' (Vikström, 2003, p. 254). Vikström (2003) triangulated the data sets to find individuals that appeared in both data sets during the same year and came up with a sample of 204 women. To maximize her ability to analyze her data sets in the same context, she coded her qualitative data sources using the population register's coding standards.…”