Industrial Work and Family Transitions: Micro-Level Evidence from Sweden 1880-1910

Hanne Clivemo, Lund University
Maria Stanfors, Centre for Economic Demography/Dept of Economic History, Lund University

With industrialization, the formal labor market expanded and so did employment opportunities for women, giving rise to the “independent female worker” thesis. In this era women in the formal workforce were typically young and unmarried. There was specialization according to gender, with age and marital status interactions. In this paper, we contribute to the historical understanding of shifting female employment patterns and the implications for family life. The first objective of this paper is to map out the employment of women during industrialization with respect to sectoral and spatial patterns. The second objective is to test the independence thesis and whether it holds consistently across sectors, analyzing the impact of formal labor force participation (i.e. gainful employment outside the home), in a discrete logit model, on future outcomes such as occupational attainment and family status (e.g. married, motherhood) up to 30 years later. We also analyze spatial variation across the country. Our working hypothesis is that industrial employment made single women more independent affecting their work and family choices. We use data from recently digitized Swedish micro-censuses 1880-1910. Data cover the entire population residing in Sweden at the time of the census. For each individual there is information on sex, year of birth, marital status, family context (children, parents, servants), parish of residence, place of birth and occupation. For the censuses 1880-1910 occupations have been coded in HISCO. We are able to link individuals between censuses, which allows for a dynamic perspective in the analysis. The results add to the literature on female labor force participation in the past, and is of empirical relevance, in describing shifts in the occupational structure of women during industrialization in Sweden, and in analyzing the implications of female employment for family formation.

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 Presented in Session 75. Household Budgets: A history of living standards