From ‘family labour’ to ‘family wage'? The case of women's labour in nineteenth‐century coalmining∗

Gendering the Field : Towards Sustainable Livelihoods for Mining Communities

“…Why did urban shipyards and aircraft plants actively recruit women, while mining communities resisted hiring them (see John 1980;Mark-Lawson and Witz 1988;Kingsolver 1989)? Practices were influenced by well-entrenched gender ideologies, accompanying lore about the work and past union struggles for job security in automating industries.…”

Attendance and work effort in the Great Northern Coalfield, 1775–18641

“…20 20 Humphries, ‘Protective legislation’, p. 23. See also Mark‐Lawson and Witz, ‘ “Family labour” ’, p. 160. …”

The ‘Family Wage’ as a Class-Rational Strategy

“…Without it, one can explore the possibility that the working-class men were influenced by motives of both gender and class, which reinforced each other, but if accepted it becomes illogical to do so as the two motives are counterposed to each other. Critics of Hartmann's interpretation have argued that the interests and responses of male workers are less immutable and homogeneous than she assumes (Milkman, 1979: 106); that the family wage and exclusion of women were not necessary for the maintenance of patriarchal control (Mark-Lawson and Witz, 1988); that she exaggerates the role of male workers in excluding women from the labour force (Brenner and Ramas, 1984: 40-47;Savage, 1988) and that she underestimates the concerns which united men and women within the working class (Vogel, 1983: 171).…”

“…10 Thus Barrett and Mclntosh have pointed to the need 'to protect the life and health of the industrial proletariat ' (1980: 53), although elsewhere Barrett lays more stress upon the advantages to the bourgeoisie of divisions within the working class (1980: 222-23). Others have emphasised the issue of labour discipline (Lewis, 1986: 100;Mark-Lawson and Witz, 1988). May's study of Henry Ford is one of the very few to examine the motives of an individual employer (May, 1982).…”