Working with Husband?“Occupation’s Wife” and Married Women’s Employment in the Censuses in England and Wales between 1851 and 1911

Abstract

Women played a vital role in British industrialization. However, studies of women’s work are often hindered by data limitation. The British censuses provide an unparalleled opportunity to study women’s work and its impact systematically. However, the reliability of the census recording of female employment is still under debate. This articles aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by examining a particular census recording concerning married women who were supposedly working with their husbands, that is “occupation’s wife.” By analyzing a new source of big data, namely 100 percent sample of Census Enumerators’ Books and published census reports, this article shows that the recording of “occupation’s wife” was not informative about the level of married women’s labor in the form of working together with their husbands in the same trade. Given the important fact that married women recorded as “occupation’s wife” constituted the largest group of married women with any occupational titles in the censuses, the results presented in this article suggest a reassessment of some of the empirical foundations in the studies of married women’s work.

Business Entry and Exit: Career Changes of Proprietors in England and Wales (1851–81) Using Record-Linkage

“…This is to be expected, as the majority of women who were employers were married/widowed and were likely to switch status between economically active and inactive as they dealt with different life-stage challenges (Davidoff 2012;Garrett et al 2001;Kay 2009;Wall 2002). It also reflects any poorer recording of female economic activity in the census (Higgs and Wilkinson 2016;You 2020aYou , 2020b. The contrasts between women and men are strongest for nonfarm, and generally greater for entry from "other."…”

“…This allows inclusion of proprietors of all sizes of business, from the largest to the most humble, who formed the overwhelming majority and who have often been ignored, for women as well as men, and for all social groups and industries. Having the manuscript census data also overcomes the criticisms of previous national-level census analyses that have had to use published tables (see Anderson 1999;Hatton and Bailey 2001: 105;Higgs 2005: 63-71;Higgs and Wilkinson 2016;You 2020a): that the published census underrecorded women's activities, and the extent of participation in business proprietorship was mostly never tabulated.…”