Gender inequality in urban British Africa: Evidence from Anglican Marriage Registers

Did Western gender norms shape gender inequality in colonial Africa? We examine the colonial origins and evolution of gender inequality in mission schooling and formal labour force participation across six cities in British colonial Africa, using marriage register data for some 30,000 Anglican brides and grooms well-positioned to benefit from colonial educational and employment opportunities. The spouses’ signature literacy and occupational statistics reveal growing gender gaps during the early colonial period—both in access to mission schools and formal work. The gender gap in formal work was much more extensive than that in schooling, peaking in the 1930s but then rapidly declining again, helped by the Africanization and feminisation of the British colonial public service towards decolonisation. Women’s alternatives to formal labour differed markedly across urban British Africa, with the majority of West African brides engaging in informal income-generating activities, contrasting their East African peers preoccupied with homemaking instead. We attribute these regional differences to women’s greater economic agency in precolonial West Africa, which persisted despite the Victorian gender ideals promoted by missionaries.