Girl Power: The European marriage pattern (EMP) and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period

"The late Middle Ages have been coined as the ‘golden age of the craftsmen’, but perhaps it was even more a ‘golden age’ for women wishing to be active on the labour market. In the North Sea region, relative earnings were high, and access to the labour market was easy, although they still had serious handicaps compared with male members of the labour force. Similarly, during the 20th century the same trends – increased relative pay and increased female participation in the labour force – were driving forces behind the process of emancipation of women, which accelerated in times of labour scarcity (during the two World Wars and during the period of rapid economic growth after 1950). In the paper the influence of the peculiar marriage pattern that developed during the late Middle Ages on the divergent development of the Low Countries and England is discussed. A rather odd combination of forces – the preaching of the Catholic Church, the system of intergenerational transfers, the expansion of the labour market and the effect the Black Death can explain why these regions developed what has been termed ""the European marriage pattern"" (Hajnal 1965, 1982). It was characterized by relatively low levels of authority and power – of parents over their children, and of men over women – which fits into the more general stream of ‘democratic’ institutions that is to some extent characteristic for the (late) Middle Ages, with its flowering of ‘representative’ institutions such as estates and city councils. The emergence of the EMP had important long-term consequences such as a dramatic change in the income transfers between generations, increasing investment in human capital and the development of institutions of social welfare."