Women and child labour

Key Facts - children
1. 1851: 2% of 5-9 year olds worked, 30% 10-14
2. 35% boys 10-14 worked in agriculture
3. 25% of girls 10-14 worked in domestic service
4. 31% of miners in Durham and Northumberland were 18 in 1841
5. Traditional work: 17% boys
6. Traditional work: 23% girls
7. Factory act 1833
8. Mines act 1842
Key facts - women
1. 1830s 65,000 working women, 3/4 unmarried 15-21, 1/4 married
2. women received 40-60% of mens wages
3. BERG - 1818 more than 1/2 the cotton workers in England and Wales were female
IR exploited child labour
1. THOMPSON - victimhood + exploitment, shameful event in our history
2. PINCHBECK + HEWITT - Child labour peaked in early factories
3. HONEYMAN - Labour supplied from orphaned children in East end of London
4. HUMPHRIES - Child labour occurred at 'astonishing levels'
IR did not exploit the use of child labour
1. CHALONER - exaggerated bias and politically motivated (parliamentray papers)
2. NARDINELLI - beneficial as education was limited so provided children with opportunites
3. HARTWELL + COLEMAN - contemporaries did not share ethical concerns
4. HUMPHRIES - children had to work as families did not have enough income
5. KIRBY - predated IR as used to work in agriculture
6. HONEYMAN - child labour was essential in early cotton factories
IR created working opportunities for women
1. BERG - women/children more amenable to factory discipline, more dexterity
2. McKendrick - active in workplace and drove consumer society
3. Sharpe - as middle class increase, more need for domestic servants
IR reduced working opportunities for women
1. PINCHBECK - opportunites were available, they fell in the 19th C.
2. SNELL + ALLEN - opportunities fell after 1820 especially in agriculture
3. ROSE, VALENZE + MINOLETTI - Patriarchal ideology + 'separate spheres'
4. BURNETTE - economic/biological factors

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Women and child labour

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	Created by kirsty-marie-bar over 9 years ago