Transitions in women's and children's work patterns and implications for the study of family income and household structure: A case study from the Catalan textile sector (1850–1925)

Abstract

This article deals with the outcomes of changes in the family labor resource allocation for family incomes and household structures. During the first stage of the demographic transition, since women worked more than men due to child bearing and child rearing, and children were the main contributors to household incomes over the medium term, there was a substitution effect whereby women 's wage labor was replaced by that of the children. With the beginning of the second industrial revolution, a contrary trend can be observed whereby child labor was replaced by that of married women, even by those reported as housewives in the Municipal Census. A smaller number of children, mandatory schooling, and an improvement of women 's position within the factory with respect to men, all seem to explain this second substitution. As a result of all these transformations, household structures and family incomes do not conform to any pre-established norms and integrate what we have defined as a family economy of mutual assistance.