Women in the Industrial Labour Force: Evidence for British Columbia, 1921-53

Abstract

The participation of women in the measured and paid labour force of the twentieth century remains a compelling subject for historians in Canada and elsewhere. A series of related problems have commanded attention: among others, the rise of women’s labour force participation; recurring crises over gender and the work roles of women and men; the persistent overrepresentation of women in specific occupations and the durability of “glass ceilings”; the intersection of class, gender, and race in the state regulation of women workers; and the long history of struggles over wages and pay equity. Central to all of these subjects is the question of the timing of the rise in women’s labour force participation as the issue of timing is critical to any explanation for changes in women’s employment and work roles.2 The issue of timing is itself bedeviled by problems with the state-generated statistics upon which all historians rely to varying degrees: the under-counting of women in both non-remunerated and paid or “gainfully occupied” labour