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Fabricage van verschillen. Mannenwerk, vrouwenwerk in de Nederlandse industrie (1850-1940)
Abstract
Fabricage van verschillen examines gender segregation in Dutch industry during the process of industrialisation. In the transitional stage, from pre-industrial to manufacturing production, the production process and labour process underwent continual change. This offered opportunities to regender the existing division of labour. Changes in the production process and the introduction of new technology created opportunities for a different division of labour between men and women. This book presents the findings of my research into how gender-based divisions of labour were actually established in industrial companies. The sex-typing of certain jobs cannot be explained at the macro level in terms of the general operation of the “industrial” labour market. The present study assumes that the explanatory value of such an approach increases though the more one descends from the macro to the micro level of investigation. I have opted for a comparative approach, comprising a general description of gender divisions in four different branches of industry and a detailed study of four companies. Research into gender divisions at the level of industry and individual companies is preferable since it provides detailed information on the origin of the sex-typing of jobs and the form that process took. For this research four markedly different types of industry were selected: the cigar-making, clothing, shoemaking, and textile industries. Selecting such very different sectors makes it possible to get a clearer picture of how gender-based divisions of labour developed in the labour process. Before factory-based production became dominant, these four industries were characterised by a wide variety of forms of production. For four companies – the Sphinx pottery factory in Maastricht, the Koninklijke Nederlandse Papierfabriek [KNP, Royal Dutch Paper Mill], also in Maastricht, the Nederlandse Katoenspinnerij [NKS, Dutch Cotton Spinning Mill] in Hengelo, and the Philips gloeilampen- en radiofabrieken [Philips Light Bulb and Radio Company] in Eindhoven – gender segregation was studied in detail. For these four companies, which were among the most important of their type, data were available on the occupations and gender of employees, allowing one to study the difference between men’s work and women’s work in great detail.
Supplementary resource (1)
... Historians have documented women's work and women's wages to determine their relative position in the labour market and their (relative) earnings. The studies are numerous, and include, amongst others, Berg (1993), Berg and Hudson (1992), Brik (2017), Burnette (1997, 2008), Clark (1919), de Groot (2001, Field (2013), Field andErickson (2009), Horrell andHumphries (1995), Humphries and Schneider (2018), Kussmaul (1981), Nederveen Meerkerk (2007), Ogilvie (2003, Pinchbeck (1981), Schmidt and Nederveen Meerkerk (2012), Sarasua (2018), Sharpe (2000, Simonton (1998), Snell (1981, Valenze (1995), van Zanden (2011), and Whittle (2005. ...
It is generally acknowledged that the degree to which women participate in labour markets and how they are remunerated are important determinants of female autonomy that may also affect their demographic behaviour. Such links have been discussed in the literature about the "European Marriage Pattern" (EMP). In order to bring about the conditions for female autonomy of the EMP (in which women have a large say in the decision when and with whom they marry), women should have had access to the labour market and have earned a decent wage. This is clearly affected by the gender wage gap and the possibility that women earn their own living and have the option to remain single. But so far no attempt has been made to compare the wages of women across Europe over the long run. In this paper we therefore provide evidence on the wages of unskilled women for seven European countries between 1300 and 1800. Our evidence shows that there were two worlds of female labour. In the South of Europe women earned about 50% of the wage of unskilled male labourers. In the Northern and Western parts of Europe this gap was much smaller during late Medieval Period, but it increased dramatically between about 1500 and 1800.
For working people, the cost of getting to work, in terms of time and expense, is a crucial aspect of daily life. In the twentieth century, people’s opportunity to travel increased. This did not, however, apply to everyone. The absence of affordable housing near job locations combined with the lack of safe, efficient, and affordable mobility options aggravated social exclusion for some. No Bicycle, No Bus, No Job details how power relations have historically enabled or restricted workers’ mobility in twentieth century Netherlands. Blue-collar workers, industrial employers, and the state shaped workers’ everyday commute in a changing playing field of uneven power relations that shifted from paternalism to neo-liberalism.
The Dutch paper and board industry (PBI) managed to survive four centuries of capitalist development, albeit in more marginal form. Even though this industry carries great importance for the politico-economic development of the Netherlands, it has seldomly been researched. This dissertation builds a trans-disciplinary link by drawing on insights from social network research, critical management studies and critical political economy, in order to answer the central research question as to how the Dutch PBI managed to stand up to politico-economic changes, including competitive pressures, technological
changes, shifting industrial policy landscapes and labor-related concerns, since its establishment in the late 16th century.
My dissertation aims to examine the role inter-organizational networks played, and will continue to play, for the survival of industries more generally, and the Dutch PBI more specifically. By contributing to a more critical approach towards studying inter-organizational networks in management research, my dissertation acknowledges inter-organizational networks (1) as historically contingent, (2) as always involving multiple agents including the state, and (3) as arenas of power asymmetry. Furthermore, this dissertation traces four crucial dimensions of inter-organizational networks to safeguard
industrial survival over time, namely state-industry relations,capital-labor relations, technology, and competition and cooperation. Such a renewed theoretical framework for studying inter-organizational networks necessitates the advancement of current methodological approaches. Consequently, my dissertation incorporates Dialectical Network Analysis (DNA), a critical methodology, which foregrounds the convergence of
multiple sources of qualitative and quantitative data sourced from diverse research methods.
This research finds that inter-organizational networks, in the case of the Dutch paper and board industry, are neither new nor heterarchic. It can thus be concluded that throughout all phases of capitalism inter-organizational networks existed within and beyond the Dutch PBI in the form of close cooperation between different companies and in the form of state-industry projects. Furthermore, the changing content, form and scope of these inter-organizational networks corresponds with the different spatial-temporal power relations between capitalist class fractions in each phase. Consequently, the inter-organizational networks at hand are not heterarchic, but exhibit different degrees of power asymmetry between the involved agents. In contrast to the wide-spread belief that
networks are a heterarchic form of cooperation, outside of markets and hierarchy, my dissertation sheds light on the fact that inter-organizational networks remain organizational models pierced by capitalist principles of profit and growth.
In the 1950s, part-time work gradually became an element of labor policy to activate women to participate in the labor market that could be transferred from one country to another. Support of part-time employment in the Dutch labor market, however, was initially not endorsed as a solution to the problem of low female labor force participation but was the outcome of a more complex set of deliberations, in which the moral economy of employers’ organizations conflicted with broader demands for increased productivity. The article contrasts the initial concerns of Dutch employers about increasing women’s labor force participation with the country’s later international role in advocating part-time work for married women on an international scale. The Netherlands thereby serves as a case study of how employers’ organizations instrumentalized part-time employment for their own moral economy based in the breadwinner ideology.
Labour market engagement by women is an important determinant of female autonomy that may also affect their demographic behaviour. In order to bring about the conditions for the female autonomy that characterized the European marriage pattern (in which women had a say in the decision about when and whom they marry), women needed to earn a decent wage. This is clearly affected by the gender wage ratio and the possibility of women earning their own living and having the option of remaining single. So far no attempt has been made to compare the wages of women across Europe over the long run. In this article we provide evidence on the wages of unskilled women for seven European countries (represented by cities or regions within these countries) between 1300 and 1800. Our evidence shows that there were two worlds of female labour. In the south of Europe women earned about 50 per cent of the wage of unskilled male labourers, a ratio that seems to have been fixed by custom. In the northern and western parts of Europe this ratio was much higher during late medieval period, but it showed a declining trend between about 1500 and 1800, a change that was caused by market forces.
During the nineteenth century, Dutch female labor force participation (FLFP) was relatively low. Most scholars argue that social norms and rising wages were driving this development. However, their conclusions principally apply to married women. We study unmarried women's LFP (UFLFP) and investigate a third driver: shifting sectoral employment shares. We include all three drivers in a logistic regression based on nearly 2 million marriage records from 1812 to 1929. We conclude that social norms and income levels mattered, but that shifting sectoral employment shares were driving the decline in UFLFP because sectors with low demand for female laborers expanded.
This chapter studies the relationships between the processes of industrialisation and de-industrialisation and women’s work within a colonial context. It does so by investigating textile production in the Netherlands, as well as in its overseas colony Java. The important position of women in the textile industry—the forerunner of mechanisation in the nineteenth century—has been understudied by economic historians, because their work generally remains unrecorded in the statistical sources. By including women’s work, I challenge two common claims in the historiography: first, that Java would have de-industrialised due to Dutch colonial economic policies, and, second, that new colonial markets for textiles in Java directly boosted the lagged industrialisation in the Netherlands. To this end, this chapter first highlights more general developments in industrial policies in the Dutch Empire. It then focuses on textile production in Java and the Netherlands, with a specific emphasis on women’s work and the evolution of gender-specific divisions of labour.
This chapter aims to bring together developments in living standards in the Netherlands and Java by highlighting the role of the contribution of women and children to household income and by scrutinising changing consumption patterns. While some historians have hinted at connections between the standard of living in metropole and colony, few studies to date have based such assumptions on firm empirical evidence. Moreover, changes in consumption patterns as well as in household income (as opposed to male wages) have seldom been systematically integrated into debates on living standards. Bringing in consumption as well as the earnings of women and children is highly relevant, because it gives a much more accurate picture of household income and thus of the standard of living. Furthermore, investigating colonial connections in combination with a move away from an exclusive focus on male wage incomes offers an important new impulse to the wider debate on living standards in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Migration of British potters and managers to continental European factories started in the late 1820s reached it highpoint in the 1850s and 1860s and ended in the 1880s. The length and peak of the migration period differed per country. To Sweden it lasted fourthly years (1838-1880) to the Netherlands only twenty (1841-1863). European factory owners needed the organisational and technical expertise of managers and skilled workmen to produce home pottery on an industrial basis. British pottery areas around Newcastle and Sunderland in the North and Stafford in the middle could supply such expertise. The Staffordshire area made up of a chain of six towns: Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley and Shelton, Stoke, Fenton and Longton formed the heart of the British pottery industry with famous firms like Wedgwood. The number of British potters per European firm was relatively small, tens at the most, but their impact on production was due to their expertise much large. As result of their scarce skill and knowledge they were able to obtain very high wages compared to the local potters. The British managers became sometimes even (partly) owners of the pottery factory they worked for.
The pioneering texts in quantitative history were written over two decades ago, but as a command of methodological context, computer experience, and statistical literacy have become increasingly important to the study of history, the need for an introductory text addressing these matters has increased. Quantitative Methods for Historians is a theoretical and practical guide for the application of quantitative analysis in historical research. It is designed for students of history and related disciplines who are curious about the possibilities of quantification and want to learn more about its recent development. Integrating the use of the statistical packages SAS and SPSS with the quantitative method, the authors discuss techniques for defining a problem, proceed to the building of a data set and the use of statistical methods, and conclude with the interpretation of results. The data set section concentrates on the basics of formalized research, discussing the coding process and the more complicated problems of data transformation and linkage. The statistical parts systematically build upon traditional fundamentals and introduce new analytical techniques for qualitative variables. Intended as a working introduction to quantitative methods, this guide also provides additional information on advanced statistical techniques and discusses questions of historical computing, reflecting critically on the proper role of quantitative methods.
