The Wages of Women in England, 1260-1850

Jane Humphries and Jacob Weisdorf

No _127, Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850 and compares it with existing evidence for men. Our series cast light on long run trends in women's agency and wellbeing, revealing an intractable, indeed widening gap between women and men's remuneration in the centuries following the Black Death. This informs several debates: first whether or not "the golden age of the English peasantry" included women; and second whether or not industrialization provided women with greater opportunities. Our contributions to both debates have implications for analyses of growth and trends in wellbeing. If the rise in wages that followed the Black Death enticed female servants to delay marriage, it contributed to the formation of the European Marriage Pattern, a demographic regime which positioned England on a path to modern economic growth. If the industrial revolution provided women with improved economic options, their gains should be included in any overall assessment of trends in the standard of living distorts the overall evaluation of the gains from industrialization.

Keywords: Black Death; England; gender wage gap; industrial revolution; gender segregation; wages; women (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 J4 J5 J6 J7 J8 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6508f179-e832-4a5b-ad5c-e2d2ab6f8d4d (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Wages of Women in England, 1260–1850 (2015)
Working Paper: THE WAGES OF WOMEN IN ENGLAND,1260-1850 (2015)
Working Paper: The Wages of Women in England, 1260-1850 (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_127

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anne Pouliquen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).