Female entrepreneurship: business, marriage and motherhood in England and Wales, 1851–1911

van Lieshout, Carry and Smith, Harry and Montebruno, Piero and Bennett, Robert (2019): Female entrepreneurship: business, marriage and motherhood in England and Wales, 1851–1911. Published in: Social History , Vol. 44, No. 4 (17 October 2019): pp. 440-468.

Abstract

This article offers a new perspective on what it meant to be a business proprietor in Victorian Britain. Based on individual census records, it provides an overview of the full population of female business proprietors in England and Wales between 1851 and 1911. These census data show that around 30% of the total business population was female, a considerably higher estimate than the current literature suggests. Female entrepreneurship was not a uniform experience. Certain demographics clustered in specific trades and within those sectors employers and own-account proprietors had strikingly different age, marital status and household profiles. A woman’s life cycle event such as marriage, motherhood and widowhood played an important role in her decision whether to work, the work available to her and the entrepreneurial choices she could make. While marriage and motherhood removed women from the labour force, they had less of an effect on their levels of entrepreneurship. Women who had young children were more entrepreneurial than those who had none, and entrepreneurship rates rose with the arrival of one child and continued to rise the more children were added to the family.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Entrepreneurship; women; gender; Victorian Britain; nineteenth century; life cycle; motherhood
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B54 - Feminist Economics; D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics; D - Microeconomics > D9 - Intertemporal Choice > D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice ; Life Cycle Models and Saving; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L26 - Entrepreneurship; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M1 - Business Administration > M13 - New Firms ; Startups; N - Economic History > N8 - Micro-Business History > N83 - Europe: Pre-1913

References

[1] Anderson, M. (1999). What can the mid-victorian censuses tell us about variations in married women's employment? Local Population Studies, 62, 9-30.

[2] Anon. (1843). The Guide to Trade, the Dress-Maker, and the Milliner, London, 5-6.

[3] Aston, J. (2016). Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century England: Engagement in the Urban Economy, London.

[4] Barker, H. (2006). The business of women: Female enterprise and urban development in northern england 1760-1830. The business of women: Female enterprise and urban development in northern england 1760-1830 (pp. 1-208) doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199299713.001.0001.

[5] Beachy, R., Craig, B., Owens, A., Beachy, R., Craig, B., & Owens, A. (2006). Introduction. Women, Business and Finance in Nineteenth Century Europe: Rethinking Separate Spheres, Oxford, 1-19.

[6] Bennett. (2019). Reconstructing Entrepreneur and Business Numbers for Censuses 1851-81, WP9, 2019, 36-39, doi.org/10.17863/CAM.37738.

[7] Bennett, R. J., Smith, H., Lieshout, C. V., Montebruno, P., & Newton, G. (2019). The Age of Entrepreneurship: Business Proprietors, Self-Employment and Corporations since 1851, London: Routledge, 5-11.

[8] Bennett, R. J., Smith, H., & Montebruno, P. (2018). The population of non-corporate business proprietors in england and wales 1891–1911. Business History, doi:10.1080/00076791.2018.1534959.

[9] Bennett, R. J., Smith, H., van Lieshout, C., Montebruno, P., & Newton, G. (2019). British Business Census of Entrepreneurs 1851–1911 (BBCE) (2020) [Data Collection], UK Data Service. SN: 8600, https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=8600.

[10] Blackburn, S. C. (1997). 'No necessary connection with homework': Gender and sweated labour, 1840-1909. Social History, 22(3), 269-285. doi:10.1080/03071029708568009.

[11] Blanchflower, D. G. (2000). Self-employment in OECD countries. Labour Economics, 7(5), 471-505. doi:10.1016/S0927-5371(00)00011-7.

[12] Booth, C. (1902). Life and Labour of the People of London, London.

[13] Burnette, J. (2008). Gender, work and wages in industrial revolution britain. Gender, work and wages in industrial revolution britain (pp. 1-377) doi:10.1017/CBO9780511495779.

[14] Clark, C. (1940). The Conditions of Economic Progress, New York.

[15] Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P., & Sakshaug, J. W. (2016). Classifying open-ended reports: Factors affecting the reliability of occupation codes. Journal of Official Statistics, 32(1), 75-92. doi:10.1515/JOS-2016-0003.

[16] Craig, B. (2015). Women and Business since 1500: Invisible Presences in Europe and North America, Oxford.

[17] Davidoff, L., & Hall, C. (1987). Family Fortunes, Abingdon.

[18] Feinstein, C. H. (1972). National income. Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom 1855-1965, London.

[19] Gamber, W. (1997). The female economy: The millinery and dressmaking trades, 1860-1930. The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930, Chicago.

[20] Hamilton, E. (2013). The discourse of entrepreneurial masculinities (and femininities). Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 25(1-2), 90-99. doi:10.1080/08985626.2012.746879.

[21] Higgs, E. (1987). Women, occupations and work in the nineteenth century censuses. History Workshop Journal, 23(1), 59-80. doi:10.1093/hwj/23.1.59.

[22] Higgs, E., Jones, C., Schürer, K., & Wilkinson, A. (2013). The Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) Guide, Colchester.

[23] Higgs, E., & Wilkinson, A. (2016). Women, occupations and work in the victorian censuses revisited. History Workshop Journal, 81(1), 17-38. doi:10.1093/hwj/dbw001.

[24] Higgs, H. (1931). Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En General, by Richard Cantillon, London, 31.

[25] HORRELL, S., & HUMPHRIES, J. (1995). Women's labour force participation and the transition to the male‐breadwinner family, 1790‐1865. The Economic History Review, 48(1), 89-117. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1995.tb01410.x.

[26] Humphries, J., & Sarasúa, C. (2012). Off the record: Reconstructing women's labor force participation in the european past. Feminist Economics, 18(4), 39-67. doi:10.1080/13545701.2012.746465.

[27] Ingram, P. (2000). British Provincial Dressmakers in the Nineteenth Century, PhD Thesis, De Montfort University, 90-94.

[28] Kay, A. (2009). The Foundations of Female Entrepreneurship: Enterprise, Home and Household in London, c.1800-1870, Abingdon, 54-82.

[29] Kuznets, S. (1941). National Income and its Composition, 1919-1938, New York.

[30] Malcolmson, P. E. (1986). English Laundresses: A Social History, 1850-1930, Chicago.

[31] McKay, J. (2007). Married women and work in nineteenth-century lancashire: The evidence of the 1851 and 1861 census reports. Women's Work in Industrial England: Regional and Local Perspectives, Hatfield, 164-181.

[32] Montebruno, P. (2018). Adjustment Weights 1891–1911: Weights to Adjust Entrepreneur Numbers for Non-Response and Misallocation Bias in Censuses 1891–1911, WP11. doi:10.17863/CAM.26378.

[33] Montebruno, P., Bennett, R. J., Van Lieshout, C., Smith, H., & Satchell, M. (2019). Shifts in agrarian entrepreneurship in mid-victorian england and wales. Agricultural History Review, 67(1), 71-108.

[34] Nenadic, S. (1998). The social shaping of business behaviour in the nineteenth-century women's garment trades. Journal of Social History, 31(3), 624-645.

[35] Parker, S. C. (2004). The economics of self-employment and entrepreneurship. The economics of self-employment and entrepreneurship (pp. 1-323) doi:10.1017/CBO9780511493430.

[36] Rose, S. O. (1988). Limited livelihoods: Gender and class in nineteenth-century england. Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England, Social History, 13, 2, 191-208.

[37] Rutterford, J., Green, D. R., Maltby, J., & Owens, A. (2011). Who comprised the nation of shareholders? gender and investment in great britain, c. 1870-1935. Economic History Review, 64(1), 157-187. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00539.x.

[38] Schürer, K. (2019). Migration to london and the development of the north-south divide, 1851-1911. Social History, 44(1), 26-56. doi:10.1080/03071022.2019.1545361.

[39] Schürer, K., Higgs, E., Reid, A. M., & Garrett, E. M. (0000). Integrated Census Microdata, 1851–1911, Version 2 (2016) [Data Collection], UK Data Service, SN: 7481, doi:10.5255/UKDA-SN-7481-1.

[40] Shaw-Taylor, L. (2007). Diverse experiences: The geography of adult female employment in england and the 1851 census. Women's Work in Industrial England: Regional and Local Perspectives, 29-50.

[41] Smith, H., Bennett, R. J., & Van Lieshout, C. (2019). Immigrant business proprietors in england and wales (1851-1911). Continuity and Change, 34(2), 253-276. doi:10.1017/S0268416019000171.

[42] Turner, J. D. (2009). Wider share ownership?: Investors in english and welsh bank shares in the nineteenth century. Economic History Review, 62(SUPPL. 1), 167-192. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00477.x.

[43] Whittle, J. (2019). A critique of approaches to 'domestic work': Women, work and the pre-industrial economy. Past and Present, 243(1), 35-70. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtz002.

[44] You, X. (2020). Women's labour force participation in nineteenth-century england and wales: Evidence from the 1881 census enumerators’ books. Economic History Review, 73(1), 106-133. doi:10.1111/ehr.12876.

[45] You, X. (forthcoming). Working with husband? “Occupation’s wife” and married women’s employment in the censuses in england and wales between 1851 and 1911. Social Science History.