Working women in France, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Where, when, and which women were in work at marriage?

Richard L. Zijdeman*, Marco H D van Leeuwen, Danièle Rébaudo, Jean Pierre Pélissier

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We look at women's labour force participation for the whole of France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We study to what extent young women were working at the time of their marriage, in which occupations, and how differences in labour force participation might be explained. Using a sample of 53,451 marriage records from the TRA project, we identify regional and temporal differences in rates of female labour force participation and in types of work in France between 1860 and 1986.We observe rather stable levels of female labour force participation between 1860 and 1950 of about 60 per cent, but higher levels in the second half of the twentieth century. Over time, women started to work across virtually all occupational sectors. Regional differences declined over time but continued to exist in the late twentieth century. We formulate a set of hypotheses to explain which women worked, taking into account their resources, as well as their expectations, in a male-breadwinner-dominated society. The results of our hierarchical logistic analysis indicate that women with fewer parental resources were more likely to work.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)537-563
Number of pages27
JournalThe History of the Family
Volume19
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014

Keywords

  • France
  • labour force participation
  • labour market
  • marriage
  • migration
  • occupations
  • women

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