11 - Dutch Live-In Farm Servants in the Long Nineteenth Century: The Decline of the Life-Cycle Service System for the Rural Lower Class

Summary

Before the twentieth century, throughout northern and western Europe a large part of the agricultural work was performed by live-in farm servants, whereas in eastern and Mediterranean Europe they were far less important. Two different models of domestic service can be discerned within the northwestern European economic-demographic system. In regions without a large landless labour force – for example, the interior provinces of the Netherlands – the system was mainly used to even out shortages and surpluses between family farms caused by (temporary) discrepancies between family size and available land. Social differences between servants and masters were relatively small. Servants often acquired a (small) farm of their own after marriage, just like their parents. In more capitalistic regions such as the Dutch coastal provinces (including Groningen) – with large social differences within the agricultural population – the situation was quite different. Many farms had more land than a farmer's family could cultivate without support, while within landless labourer households useful economic activities were lacking, stimulating the members of these families to work for the farmers, partly as live-in farm servants.

Past Dutch research concentrated mainly on young women doing live-in domestic work. Around 1900 the position of domestic servant became increasingly unpopular with young women. The supply of domestic servants decreased, because it was felt that it was humiliating to be a servant and the work offered few prospects. Young women preferred to work in a factory or in a shop, inasmuch as these positions offered more individual freedom (as factory workers) or a higher social status (as live-in shop assistants). While demand for domestic servants did not fall, domestic work was increasingly done by non-resident women. After World War One, the resulting shortage of live-in domestic servants was partly solved by an influx of German maids.

Although attracting less attention in the literature, the number of live-in farm servants was probably higher than that of domestic servants for most of the nineteenth century. Van Zanden estimated the number of female Dutch farm servants using tax and census data. According to his analyses there were 37,200 young women aged sixteen or older in 1810, 42,200 in 1850, 33,000 in 1880 and 28,500 in 1910 active as live-in farm servants.