A Fair or a Minimum Wage? Women Workers, the State, and the Origins of Wage Regulation in Western Canada

Patriarchal domination is now, correctly, viewed as a major feature of social organization in pre-capitalist and non-capitalist societies. In capitalist market societies, it has been related to the operant division of labour, the separation of domestic from waged work and the implications that this has for both spheres of activity. Various theoretical approaches have been developed to account for structured gender inequality in the face of supposed labour market impartiality. By examining an explicit case of gender bias, the use of minimum wage laws to regulate the conditions of women workers, the paper offers an evaluation of these approaches, while at the same time bringing the state and relevant political issues back into the analysis of gender. Resume La domination patriarcale est couramment percue, avec justesse, comme un trait saillant de l'organisation sociale des societes pre-capitalistes et non- capitalistes. Pour l'economie de marche des societes capitalistes, on l'associe aux effets de la division du travail, a la separation du travail domestique et du travail salarie et a ses implications pour chacune de ses deux spheres d'activites. Differentes approches theoriques ont ete avancees afin d'expliquer l'existence d'une telle inegalite structuree des rapports sociaux de sexe dans un marche de travail supposement impartial. Cette etude se tourne vers un cas concret de prejuge sexuel, celui de l'application des lois sur le salaire minimum, afin d'examiner ces approches theoriques tout en incorporant le role de l'Etat et les questions politiques pertinentes a l'analyse des rapports sociaux de sexe

Demographic economics · Economics · Labour economics · Low wage · Minimum wage · State (computer science · Wage · Canadian Identity and History

• The Economics of Gender-Specific Minimum Wage Legislation

  Riccardo Marchingiglio, Michael Poyker•Journal of Labor Economics•2026

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