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Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain

Bibliographic Data

ID23398273
AuthorsJodie Burnette (0000-0002-1491-4300, Wabash College, corresponding author), Joyce Burnette
Year2008
Publication date2008-04-17
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueGender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511495779
OpenAlexW2172255359
Open LibraryOL34440506M
ISBN9780511495779
LanguageEN
Citations received64
References cited140

A major study of the role of women in the labour market of Industrial Revolution Britain. It is well known that men and women usually worked in different occupations, and that women earned lower wages than men. These differences are usually attributed to custom but Joyce Burnette here demonstrates instead that gender differences in occupations and wages were instead largely driven by market forces. Her findings reveal that rather than harming women competition actually helped them by eroding the power that male workers needed to restrict female employment and minimising the gender wage gap by sorting women into the least strength-intensive occupations. Where the strength requirements of an occupation made women less productive than men, occupational segregation maximised both economic efficiency and female incomes. She shows that women's wages were then market wages rather than customary and the gender wage gap resulted from actual differences in productivity.

Competition (biology) · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Efficiency wage · Industrial Revolution · Labour economics · Occupational segregation · Political science · Productivity · Wage · Australian History and Society · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · 19th century · Employment · Great britain · History · Sex discrimination against women · Women · Women employees

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Unique citing works64
Citations per year3,76
Citation span2009 - 2026 (18)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 54
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