Taking work home: Labour dynamics of women industrial homeworkers in Sweden during the second industrial revolution
Abstract
The papers in this dissertation explore women’s labour market decisions in the context of an
industrializing economy by focusing on female industrial homeworkers in Sweden during
the second industrial revolution. Three different datasets were compiled for these studies: one
cross-sectional, individual-level dataset based on survey data from interviews conducted with
a large number of individual industrial homeworkers in 1911; one longitu- dinal, individuallevel
panel dataset based on poll tax records; and one dataset comprising qualitative data based
on contemporary texts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the
data. The dissertation consists of an introduction, four research papers and a description of
the compilation of the first two datasets.
Paper 1 investigates how the birth of a first child affected the timing of the transition
into industrial homework for the individuals. The main result was that having a first child
significantly increased an individual’s propensity to start industrial homework, both in the
urban and rural contexts.
Paper 2 identifies life-course patterns of paid work for industrial homeworkers and explores
how marital status affected the trajectories in and out of industrial homework. The results
showed that for most women, industrial homework was part of a continuous occupational
trajectory and few experienced any occupational mobility during the tran- sition to or from
industrial homework.
The focus of paper 3 is seasonal variations in hours worked and how seasonal variation
can be explained. The main finding was instead a general lack of seasonal variation in hours
worked, in both the urban and rural samples. Most women worked surprisingly consistent
hours year-round, despite often being described as highly flexible and seasonal workers. There
was however some seasonal variation found in hours worked and this was mainly related to
differences in products made.
Paper 4 explores the theory of “housewifization” and whether industrial homeworkers
were marginalized and unprotected in the labour market because they were considered to be
housewives working for pin money. Industrial homeworkers were not found to be described
as housewives or working for pin money in the public debate in early 20th century Sweden.
Nor were they housewives – most of them contributed significantly to the household income
and the majority of industrial homeworkers were heads of their own households.
This dissertation provides new individual-level evidence of the labour market decisions
made by an important but little studied segment of the labour market: industrial homeworkers.
By combining quantitative and qualitative methods with data from unconventional
sources, it tells us about the conditions of homeworkers as individuals, as parts of families
and households, and as a group in the labour market.
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
University
Göteborgs universitet. Handelshögskolan
Institution
Department of Economy and Society ; Institutionen för ekonomi och samhälle
Disputation
Fredagen den 27 mars 2015, kl. 10.15, hörsal Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
Date of defence
2015-03-27
malin.nilsson@econhist.gu.se
View/ Open
Date
2015-03-05Author
Nilsson, Malin
Keywords
Industrial homework
industrialization
gender
social history
Publication type
Doctoral thesis
ISBN
978-91-86217-13-6
Series/Report no.
Gothenburg studies in economic history
14
Language
eng