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Constructing equality? : Women’s wages for physical labor, 1550-1759

Gary, Kathryn E. LU (2017) In Lund Papers in Economic History
Abstract
This paper combines new archival data on women’s wages from southern Sweden with published series from Stockholm in order to create a series of early modern female construction workers’ wages between the middle of the sixteenth and middle of the eighteenth centuries. This paper finds that women had relatively high relative wages in the later part of the sixteenth century, with an increasing wage gap into the eighteenth century, and that the changes in women’s relative remuneration are connected to changes in demand factors.
This paper challenges assumptions about women’s participation in manual labor, in many cases finding a lack of differentiation between female and male unskilled workers as well as and unskilled labor force comprised... (More)
This paper combines new archival data on women’s wages from southern Sweden with published series from Stockholm in order to create a series of early modern female construction workers’ wages between the middle of the sixteenth and middle of the eighteenth centuries. This paper finds that women had relatively high relative wages in the later part of the sixteenth century, with an increasing wage gap into the eighteenth century, and that the changes in women’s relative remuneration are connected to changes in demand factors.
This paper challenges assumptions about women’s participation in manual labor, in many cases finding a lack of differentiation between female and male unskilled workers as well as and unskilled labor force comprised of from forty to sixty percent women and high work intensity for female construction workers. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
gender wage gap, wages, women, Scandinavia, Sweden, early modern period
in
Lund Papers in Economic History
issue
158
pages
25 pages
publisher
Department of Economic History, Lund University
ISSN
1101-346X
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
18b2ec0e-98b5-4d8f-83a3-1302aec4b858
date added to LUP
2017-04-12 10:24:17
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:31:20
@misc{18b2ec0e-98b5-4d8f-83a3-1302aec4b858,
  abstract     = {{This paper combines new archival data on women’s wages from southern Sweden with published series from Stockholm in order to create a series of early modern female construction workers’ wages between the middle of the sixteenth and middle of the eighteenth centuries. This paper finds that women had relatively high relative wages in the later part of the sixteenth century, with an increasing wage gap into the eighteenth century, and that the changes in women’s relative remuneration are connected to changes in demand factors.<br/>This paper challenges assumptions about women’s participation in manual labor, in many cases finding a lack of differentiation between female and male unskilled workers as well as and unskilled labor force comprised of from forty to sixty percent women and high work intensity for female construction workers.}},
  author       = {{Gary, Kathryn E.}},
  issn         = {{1101-346X}},
  keywords     = {{gender wage gap; wages; women; Scandinavia; Sweden; early modern period}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{158}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Economic History, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History}},
  title        = {{Constructing equality? : Women’s wages for physical labor, 1550-1759}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/23897279/LUP_158.pdf}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}