Organizers: dr. Corinne Boter (Utrecht University); Prof. Joyce Burnette (Wabash College), dr. Selin Dilli (Utrecht University)
 
Over the past decades, historical research on women’s labour has expanded drastically (Merouani and Perrin 2022), yet topics such as the extend of the gender wage gap (Humphries and Weisdorf 2015), the development of women’s wage work and entrepreneurship (Boter and Woltjer 2020), and the reasons for occupational segregation (Burnette 2008) remain heavily debated. This session will pay attention to two important gaps in our knowledge to further our understanding of these issues. First, most research is carried out at the macro-level or individual level. However, a firm level analysis of gender inequalities is crucial as this is where individuals made the choice to work as wage employers, were assigned tasks, and their salaries were determined. Moreover, company-level research allows scholars to move beyond aggregate datasets and research information in its historical context. This is important to test the accuracy of generalizations. For instance, the same job could be qualified as typically male in one firm, but typically female in another (de Groot 2001) and these qualifications also changed over time. Moreover, recent studies (Stanfors et al. 2014; Burnette and Stanfors 2020) underline the importance of between firm-level competition to explain the gender wage gap and feminisation of some sectors. Second, most existing research on the history of women’s work does not distinguish between female wage workers and female entrepreneurs, two groups of women that followed very different historical trajectories and responded to economic change, cultural contexts, and social norms differently (van Lieshout et al. 2020; Dilli and Boter 2024). To better understand the nature and the drivers of the gender wage gap, occupational segregation, and women’s work in general, we need to consider the diversity in women’s occupational choices in a holistic way. These two issues of firm-level analysis and the different types of women’s work are directly linked. For instance, previous studies have focused on the differences between firm structures, such as between family and non-family firms, to explain women’s business activity. Some studies have highlighted the importance of family firms in promoting women’s entrepreneurship and innovation activity in the 19th-century and 20th century France and Italy (Picciaia 2017; Khan 2016). However, the empirical evidence relies on few case studies and other studies have contested the view that family firms have been conducive to gender equality.
 
We welcome papers on a wide range of topics related to women’s labour which takes particularly the company and company-level archives as its primary level of analysis. We also welcome papers that explicitly consider the distinct nature of female wage workers and female entrepreneurs, i.e. research on women working for a company or women who own their own company. We welcome scholars working on the following questions:
 1) How has the nature and extend of the gender wage gap changed over time (for instance looking at the difference between piece and time rates);
 2) How do masculinization or feminization of specific occupations, i.e. the extend of occupational segregation, change over time and why?
 3) How and when did women choose entrepreneurship compared to wage work? Can this explain the long-term development of female entrepreneurship?
 These questions are not exclusive. We also welcome methodological papers that consider the structure, pitfalls, and usefulness of company archives for women’s labour history. We strive for a broad geographical coverage, and we are interested in papers that cover the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
We invite interested participants to submit a 300-word abstract to c.a.boter[at]uu.nl by October 30th. Authors will be notified of the outcome of the abstract selection in mid-November.