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Segmentation in the Pre-Industrial Labour Market: Women's Work in the Dutch Textile Industry, 1581–1810

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2006

Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk
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Abstract

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This article analyses women's work in the Dutch textile industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries within the framework of dual (or segmented) labour market theory. This theoretical framework is usually applied to the modern labour market, but it is also valuable for historical research. It clarifies, for example, how segmentation in the labour market influenced men's and women's work in the textile industry. Applying this analysis, we find that, even in periods without explicit gender conflict, patriarchal and capitalist forces utilized the gender segmentation of the labour market to redefine job status and labour relations in periods of economic change. Although this could harm the economic position of all women and migrants, it appears that single women were affected most by these mechanisms.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , August 2006 , pp. 189 - 216
Copyright
2006 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Footnotes

I should like to thank the editorial committee and three anonymous referees of the IRSH, and my colleagues Lex Heerma van Voss, Danielle van den Heuvel, Jelle van Lottum, and Jan Lucassen for their useful comments on earlier versions of this article