How much did we care? Wetnurses' wages in Florence, 1700-1914

Care work has long remained marginal in economic history, despite its centrality to household survival and social reproduction. This paper contributes filling this gap by reconstructing a long-run wage series for paid care work, focusing on wetnurses employed by the Florentine foundling home (Ospedale degli Innocenti) between 1700 and 1914. Drawing on novel archival sources, we construct nominal and real wage series for wetnurses, distinguishing between breastfeeding and weaning remuneration, and compare them with male agricultural wages in the same area. Our results show that wetnurses wages were persistently low, remaining well below subsistence throughout the period. Nevertheless, paid breastfeeding accounted on average for nearly 30 percent of household income, highlighting its importance as a survival strategy among impoverished rural families. Comparative evidence with Madrid reveals similar institutional wage-setting mechanisms and similar precarious contractual conditions. By decomposing total remuneration into breastfeeding and weaning components, we estimate the implicit valuation of breastmilk, which fluctuated substantially over time, ranging from 14 to 40 percent of total pay. We argue that wetnurses wages did not respond to market forces but were institutionally determined, reflecting the gendered nature of wage formation in the care economy. Overall, the paper sheds new light on women’s economic contribution, pre-industrial living standards, and the historical valuation of care work.