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Women’s labor force participation in Italy, 1861-2016

Author

Listed:
  • Giulia Mancini
Abstract
The economic history of women in Italy is still very much in its infancy. Not only there are few quantitative historical interpretations that explicitly include women, but there is also close to no evidence on many key variables describing women’s evolving economic role, wellbeing, and inequality relative to men throughout the country’s history. This paper takes the first step toward filling this gap: it builds a new time series of female labor force participation for post-Unification Italy, that adjusts census-based estimates using both aggregate and micro-data from alternative sources, including historical household budget surveys. Women’s work before the Second World War was more pervasive than previously thought, and female labor supply has a decidedly asymmetric U-shape throughout Italy’s history. These findings prompt new questions on the consequences of economic development on women’s wellbeing in Italy.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulia Mancini, 2017. "Women’s labor force participation in Italy, 1861-2016," HHB Working Papers Series 8, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbu:wpaper:8
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    Cited by:

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    2. Pasqualini, Marta & di Gessa, Giorgio & Tomassini, Cecilia, 2021. "A Change is (not) Gonna Come: A twenty-year overview of Italian grandparents-grandchildren exchanges," SocArXiv 8wgux, Center for Open Science.
    3. Mancini, Giulia, 2019. "The determinants of female labor supply in Italy, 1881-2018," MPRA Paper 102165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Giacomo Gabbuti, 2020. "A Noi! Income Inequality and Italian Fascism: Evidence from Labour and Top Income Shares," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _177, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Giovanni Federico & Alessandro Nuvolari & Leonardo Ridolfi & Michelangelo Vasta, 2021. "The race between the snail and the tortoise: skill premium and early industrialization in Italy (1861–1913)," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(1), pages 1-42, January.
    6. Mancini, Giulia, 2020. "Breadwinner, bread maker. Gender division of labor and intrahousehold inequality in 1930s rural Italy," MPRA Paper 102142, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    female work; gender; historical household budgets; INEA; Italy; labor force participation; marriage records;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-

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