Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), p. 233

There is abundant evidence from different continents and across the centuries to suggest that historically women have earned less than men. In Britain during the classic period of the Industrial Revolution (c.1750–1850), women usually earned somewhere between a third and two-thirds of the male wage. Moreover, occupational sorting had resulted in men and women performing different jobs, with women workers being found in a fairly limited range of occupations. Whilst the existence of job segregation and the wage gap is well-known and not disputed, there is less agreement amongst historians as to the cause of this gender division of work and wages. The primary aim of Joyce Burnette’s book is to tackle this contentious question head-on and produce a nuanced debate about gender discrimination in the workforce. She sets out her reasoning carefully and clearly in the introduction: economic motivation was the driving force behind gender differences in work and wages. This explanation is at variance with those historians who give preference to gender ideology. Whilst not dismissing the importance of ideology, Burnette argues that economic actuality drove ideology, not that other way round.

Burnette is therefore interested in ‘what work women did, rather than how people thought or spoke about this work’ (p.3). Chapter 1 attempts to provide an overview of women’s work. It begins by measuring the incidence of occupational sorting by extracting statistics from a range of sources including the census, parliamentary reports, and commercial directories, before moving on to a qualitative description of the main female occupations (textiles, cottage industry, agriculture and domestic service) from anecdotal sources. Chapter 2 then establishes the size of the wage gap across occupations, carefully differentiating between time-rate wages (by the day or week) and piece-rate earnings (by output). The results concur with those of other historians and confirm that the wage ratio between women and men usually ranged between one-third and two-thirds (even after correcting for variables such as the different hours worked by men and women, and non-cash benefits). The rest of this chapter and the next get to the real gist of the book, seeking explanations for the wage-gap and occupational sorting by gender. Were they determined by custom or by market forces? Burnette concludes that in the competitive portions of the labour market women’s lower wages were the result of their labour productivity and were set by the market rather than custom. In piece-rate work, differences in earnings were due to differences in productivity and time worked, not to men and women being paid different rates. In time-rate work, differences in strength and training were the key determinants in divergent productivity rates. Biological factors also explain occupational sorting, especially strength. Except laundry work, workers in strength-intensive industries tended to be men, and workers in industries requiring less strength were primarily women. Childbearing and rearing also led women to be concentrated in certain industries, with high childcare costs encouraging women to work in the home-based industries. Occupational sorting could therefore be beneficial to women: it guided them to occupations where strength was not important and minimized the wage gap by allowing them to earn higher wages than they would have had in an economy without it. Burnette also argues that women’s wages were market-led and could and did respond to supply and demand conditions. Evidence presented in chapter 3 shows that women’s wages did rise when demand for their labour was high (for instance in the lace and straw-plait industries during the Napoleonic Wars) and, in chapter 5, evidence for substitutability being present in agriculture is offered, with farmers willing to hire more women if men’s wages increased too much and began to squeeze their profits. In contrast chapters 5 and 6 turn to industries where occupational barriers did exist, in the less competitive skilled labour market (where unions benefited from exclusionary tactics) and in self-employment, such as the professions and retailing, where capital requirements, educational handicaps and gender barriers all limited female opportunities. Gender ideology therefore had a more pervasive influence in these non-competitive areas of the economy. Finally, chapter 7 analyses women’s labour force participation, arguing in the first half of the nineteenth century this was caused by declining demand, whereas after 1851, mounting occupational barriers, rising household incomes and new attitudes and information about health all contributed.

Burnette argues that contemporaries did not necessarily understand economic models and therefore often turned to the language of custom to explain the gender division of work and wages. Historians should not construe these statements as a description of reality. But will her methodology and conclusions convince? Many will pick up this book already familiar with the line of argument as published in a series of high-profile articles over the last few years and will need no persuading. Some will be more sceptical. I found many of the arguments relating to the existence of market forces in chapters 2 and 3 persuasive. However, much of the evidence comes from the agricultural sector. Whilst obviously not wanting to question the significance of the industry that has formed the focus of my own academic research, can this be taken as typical of work and wages during the industrial revolution in Britain as a whole? Others will find the econometric approach forbidding, if not completely off-putting, and the result may be a more pronounced schism between historians of women’s work based on methodological approach. There is no doubt that the author has a confident and sophisticated handling of the data. At other points though the author appears to be rather out of her comfort zone and I found sections on the exclusionary tactics of trade unions or explanations for declining female labour force participation for example, rather less convincing.

This book is relevant to everyone with an interest in women’s work in Britain in the post-1750 period and deserves a wide audience. Even those with an aversion to economic modelling need to give it a go. The nuanced debate that Burnette calls for in the introduction should then be guaranteed.