ABSTRACT
It has been argued that married women constitute a "hidden" labor force in economies whose industrial structure is characterized by a large number of small, family-based production units. 1 Because their market work is unpaid and because it is performed alongside their family obligations, their connection to the labor force is obscured. It was the case in the United States before 1940 that the primary production unit was family-based. In 1900, I estimate that 32.3 percent of all married women contributed to GNP, many in family businesses. The total reported employment of married women was only 5.3 percent. Thus, the "hidden" labor force was over five times the size of the reported labor force. By 1940, nearly all women working or seeking work were reported as members of the labor force. This was due to two factors: (a) changes in census definitions of employment that were more inclusive of women's work, and (b) the shift from employment in family businesses to more easily counted employment as wage workers outside the home that married women experiences over the course of the century. This book makes possible the identification of this hidden labor of women. It provides much needed clarification of the characteristics of market producti.on, permitting empirical estimation of women's work in economies undergoing structural transformation, as was the United States around the turn of the century.
