Did Women really always work?

[MaggieBroonofGlebeSt]

Genuine question but definitely most interested if possible in actual data not anecdotal. On most threads about SAHMs people will always say that women have always worked apart from the rare recent middle classes who are an outlier.
Is that true? For example I was reading Call the Midwife; none of the women seem to have a job despite being very working class. Reading old books I never read about married women with kids from any background who worked.
In my family I don't know of any married women who worked but fair enough, they were generally wellish off.
All that is anecdotal though!
If women did work, who looked after their kids? I honestly don't see how it would be possible for most women with children.

Industrial onwards. Up until then the boundaries of paid work/home would be much more blurred, as people have said; small holdings etc.

That bbc article talks about multigenerational householders with the older family members caring for the children and the mothers out in factories etc. earning.

My mum was a sahm.

MiL was a sahm while the children were little. Once they were all at school she had a variety of part time jobs based around the children. FiL worked two jobs, a normal day job and an evening/weekend job, both wage packets were handed over unopened to MiL as she was in charge of the house. Her jobs were low paid, once the children were older she got a full time job and FiL gave up his second job.
DH would walk to/from school on his own. During holidays he basically looked after himself.

My grandma used to make clothes for the big stores, she was a dressmaker and used to do home working, before everything was made abroad there was a lot of this time of work done from home

I was brought up with cousins the baby sitting was always shared between aunts and my Gm.

My mum worked for the civil service after leaving school (late 1940's) but stopped FT work when she married dad (mid 1950's) and became a SAHP.
She worked PT from home throughout much of her life as a private music teacher (weekday evenings) and did this up to the mid 1980's.

Regarding teachers, it was officially a requirement that married women stop teaching (and other civil service roles) to provide these jobs for men - particularly relevant post-war & during recessions.

There were always exceptions, as PP said, during the war, for example, and locally, based on need.

It was known as the Marriage Bar; it persisted in Ireland until 1973; for many parts of the Civil Service in the UK, it was abolished immediately post WW2 but existed in the Foreign Service till the 70s.

However, despite all that, all women in my family worked - my mother's side of the family has always been highly educated (university level) and several generations back, all the women continued to work, as teachers. My great-grandparents founded a school, as did several others (there was no state funding for either primary or secondary education for a considerable period, free secondary education didn't come into existence till 1960s). Several great aunts, and older, didn't marry. My own DGM was extremely bright & one of the earliest female graduates in German, in Ireland, in the 1930s. She stopped working when she married but was convinced to return about a decade later as they had no teachers with her subjects - she asked who would mind her children, and the nuns said 'we'll find someone' and did (Ireland, again).

On my father's side, they were rural, farmers. Equally strong on education, with a history of sending both girls & boys away to the UK to be educated. The women worked on the farm, but ran their own businesses, as was common - usually hens (eggs) or rearing turkeys. This was their own money to have & was precious to them.

When I was growing up, in the late 70s / 80s, most mothers didn't work; but it was completely normal to me, as all my aunts did, in addition to my mother. I think it was quite tough though - my mother never took time off school for us, even when quite little, if we were sick, she tucked us up in bed & left us! (We were perfectly happy). She didn't ever make it to eg piano recitals or exams during her school day & I really missed that - of course I now turn myself inside out, as a single working parent, trying to be at everything mine do.

When he decided to get married, he kicked us out and claimed the house as his own.
It was hard being a single working mother.

Oh my God. That's horrific. Your poor mum - and you. What did you do?

Pre Industrial Revolution, when towns and cities were much smaller, women would have been busy working on farms/smallholding etc. Once factories and mills opened, and people migrated to urban areas, women worked and would leave children in the care of a local ‘childminder’ type. Others would go into service. Once girls started to be educated seriously by the late Victorians, its occurred to men that women could do office/ shop jobs, and would be cheaper than a man.

Women were certainly expected to stay at home once married as the assumption was they would soon have children

but a man’s wage wasn’t always enough, my great granddad was a miner and my great grandmother worked but still food was scarce but that was the norm

Class thing in my family. Paternal GM and GGM never worked a day in their lives (middle class, Northern, husbands teachers at private schools). Maternal GM (working class, London Irish) worked in shops, cleaning etc, GGM fisherman's wife in Ireland, I think they worked helping with catch, nets etc.

Think it changed for some reason in the 60s/70s though. My Mother, Aunts etc on both sides all stopped work either when got married or had kids.

Depends when? As far as I know in the 19th and 20th centuries working class women worked if their was decent paid work to be had - so in say Manchester where there was factory work they generally did, in say a mining town they generally didn’t.

Lowlier more poorly paid work like cleaning was done married women who had to, or I suppose if they really wanted their own money.

Kids were looked after by whoever - grannies, older kids, neighbouring women who couldn’t or didn’t work outside the home. In the 19th kids worked pretty young.

A lot of lower middle class women would have worked in their husband’s businesses and been run ragged at home. Middle middle class and above didn’t - but unless they were very rich they’d have been pretty busy at home - a couple of servants would still have left a lot to do if you had a few kids.

Working class upbringing. My mum was a stay at home parent for her 3 children, until I the oldest spent to secondary school, then got part time job.
That was normal in my 70s / 80s childhood.
My Grandparents similar, the women worked, but usually part time unskilled, picking potatoes, cleaning etc.

Apparently the Dundee mills had nurseries that took babies from 6 weeks old! They also preferred to employ women as they could pay them less than men. I didn’t grow up here myself, but as a transplant I’m interested in the history. Neither of my own grandmothers worked, and even my own mum never returned to her career after I was born (early 80’s) although she did work part time.

In response to @tescocreditcard

Not where I was brought up (in a working class suburb no less). Men earnt enough to support an entire family and every mother I knew was a stay at home mum. How old are you to make such an erroneous statement?

Who is making an erroneous statement?

@tescocreditcard

Oh, and if you are looking for evidence - George Orwell's the road to Wigan pier which is pre-war looks at working conditions in northern mill towns and documents married women working.

My Mum didn't work after having children, she never worked again, through choice and same for plenty of other women. They seemed much calmer and happier, as did the children.

My Nan always worked. My mum had to give her job up when she married at 21! She didn't work when she had children initially but went back to work when we all started at school and my lovely Nan who was retired in her fifties did wrap around care for us.

How far back are you wondering about? Even in biblical times women worked (and for money) so it’s certainly not a recent thing!

In call the midwives the midwives themselves obviously worked!!

Women certainly did work to help the family finances, but it wasn't that easy: it was long, hard toil managing a house and several children before advent of washing machines, steam irons, refrigeration, proper cookers, and even hot water. Clothes had to be washed by hand, food shopped for daily, meals had to be prepared from scratch twice a day because people came home for lunch.

Aaargh yes but they didn't have children and they're all nuns or young (Jenny) so unmarried. I thought it was obvious what I meant but clearly not.

My paternal grandma was a rural midwife and health visitor in the 1920s and 30s. She used to cycle around the villages. Her dch were looked after by a local teen.
My maternal grandparents ran a shop that had been started two generations earlier. Their oldest dd looked after the younger dch and missed out on schooling. On one occasion when she was small she fell onto the fire in the back room while both her parents were in the shop.
I think women also did things like taking in washing and cleaning for more wealthy people.