What happens if women disappear from the labor market? Occupational status of women at marriage in a modernizing society

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are an especially interesting period to investigate women's status attainment in Western societies because interesting and partly contrary developments took place. First, women increasingly withdrew from the labor market after marriage, possibly as a consequence of increasing prosperity that allowed families to survive on only one (the male) income. Secondly girls increasingly participated in secondary education which should have given them more job opportunities. Thirdly, in part due to the early suffragette movement, notions on equal treatment of men and women gained ground. In view of these developments we will answer the following questions: How did the occupational status of women at marriage change over time, and how did it vary between regions? To what extent can regional and temporal variation in the occupational status of women at marriage be explained by (a) the decrease in women's labour force participation rates (b) the increase in schooling of girls and (c) the increase of gender equality notions?

The data we use, the GENLIAS dataset is an excellent source to study status attainment at marriage over a long period of time. It includes all 19th and early 20th century marriage certificates of the Netherlands. The 911,602 marriage certificates that we analyze do not only contain information on the married persons, but also on their parents, ages and often their occupational titles. In addition the place of marriage is noted. These rich information allow us to employ a multi-level research design, where the theoretical processes are measured at the level of municipalities, and may vary yearly.