IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ghe/wpaper/6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Survival strategies of single women in the Bruges countryside, 1814

Author

Listed:
  • Sofie De Langhe

    (Department of History, Ghent University)

  • Isabelle Devos

    (Department of History, Ghent University)

  • Christa Matthys

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock)

Abstract

This paper explores the employment opportunities and subsistence strategies of single women in the countryside around Bruges on the basis of the census of 1814. This source enables us to provide an overview of the professions and household situations of more than 5000 single women above the age of 30. At that age, women exceeded the mean age of marriage and presumably had to develop very specific subsistence strategies. The census of 1814 allows us to look at the registered occupations for older single women in two different social agro-systems (polder and inland Flanders), but it also provides us with material to look more into depth at single women without a registered occupation. While these women were officially ‘without occupation’, they most probably did work. Information on household structures allows us to get an insight into the living arrangements and the activities of these women. From this perspective, the paper contributes to two important discussions, that is on the living conditions of single women, and those of rural women. While women in the city have attracted the most scholarly attention, the living conditions of rural women remain largely unexplored. Length: 16 pages

Suggested Citation

  • Sofie De Langhe & Isabelle Devos & Christa Matthys, 2013. "Survival strategies of single women in the Bruges countryside, 1814," EED-Working Papers 6, EED research unit, department of History, Ghent University.
  • Handle: RePEc:ghe:wpaper:6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eed.ugent.be/RePEc/workingpapers/2013-3.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pamela Sharpe, 1991. "Literally spinsters: a new interpretation of local economy and demography in Colyton in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 44(1), pages 46-65, February.
    2. Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2003. "A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198205548.
    3. Clark, Alice, 1919. "The Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number clark1919.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A. W. Carus & Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2009. "Turning qualitative into quantitative evidence: a well‐used method made explicit1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(4), pages 893-925, November.
    2. Elise Van Nederveen Meerkerk, 2010. "Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(1), pages 165-186, February.
    3. Alexandra de Pleijt & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2021. "Two worlds of female labour: gender wage inequality in western Europe, 1300–1800," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(3), pages 611-638, August.
    4. Dennison, Tracy & Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2014. "Does the European Marriage Pattern Explain Economic Growth?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 651-693, September.
    5. John Meadowcroft & Mark Pennington, 2008. "Bonding and bridging: Social capital and the communitarian critique of liberal markets," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 119-133, September.
    6. Timothy W. Guinnane & Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, 2013. "A Two-Tiered Demographic System: "Insiders" and "Outsiders" in Three Swabian Communities, 1558-1914," Working Papers 1021, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    7. T. K. Dennison & Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2007. "Serfdom and social capital in Bohemia and Russia1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 60(3), pages 513-544, August.
    8. Kumon, Yuzuru & Sakai, Kazuho, 2022. "Women’s Wages and Empowerment: Pre-industrial Japan, 1600-1890," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 18/2022, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    9. Guinnane, Timothy W. & Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2008. "Institutions and Demographic Responses to Shocks: Wurttemberg, 1634-1870," Working Papers 44, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    10. Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2004. "Guilds, efficiency, and social capital: evidence from German proto‐industry," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 57(2), pages 286-333, May.
    11. Jeremy Edwards & Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2022. "Did the Black Death cause economic development by ‘inventing’ fertility restriction? [Land use and management in the upland demesne of the De Lacy estate of Blackburnshire c. 1300]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 1228-1246.
    12. Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2007. "‘Whatever is, is right’? Economic institutions in pre‐industrial Europe," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 60(4), pages 649-684, November.
    13. van den Heuvel, Danielle & Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2013. "Retail development in the consumer revolution: The Netherlands, c. 1670–c. 1815," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 69-87.
    14. Helen Paul, 2015. "Editorial: Women in economic and social history: twenty-fifth anniversary of the Women's Committee of the Economic History Society," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 1-17, May.
    15. Ariadne Schmidt & Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, 2012. "Reconsidering The “Firstmale-Breadwinner Economy”: Women's Labor Force Participation in the Netherlands, 1600--1900," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 69-96, October.
    16. Palma, Nuno & Reis, Jaime & Rodrigues, Lisbeth, 2023. "Historical gender discrimination does not explain comparative Western European development: evidence from Portugal, 1300-1900," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. James Fenske, 2013. "Does Land Abundance Explain African Institutions?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1363-1390, December.
    18. Paul Johnson & Stephen Nicholas, 1997. "Health and Welfare of Women in the United Kingdom, 1785-1920," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Welfare during Industrialization, pages 201-250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Alexander Klein & Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2016. "Occupational structure in the Czech lands under the second serfdom," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(2), pages 493-521, May.
    20. Dessi, Roberta & Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2003. "Social Capital and Collusion : The Case of Merchant Guilds," IDEI Working Papers 214, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ghe:wpaper:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nicolas De Vijlder (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.eed.ugent.be .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.