Counting Workers

The 1851 Census of England and Wales offered a poignant tribute to the work of wives and mothers. Under the direction of the physician William Farr, who likely had some direct experience of women ‘‘in labor” as well as laboring, it reasserted the mercantilist principle that a country’s most important product was its population.² The census officially acknow­ledged the occupation of housewife, placing ‘‘wives, mothers and mistresses’’ who did not work for pay in a category by themselves, the ‘‘Fifth Class’’.

After Farr retired the census moved toward greater conformity with the double standard of liberal political theory. In 1881 wives and other women engaged in domestic duties were explicitly placed in the ‘‘Unoccu­pied Class’’ which replaced the earlier ‘‘Indefinite and Non-productive’’ category. The discussion noted that many of the ‘‘unoccupied’’ were women, ‘‘who can only be called unoccupied, when that term is used in the limited sense that it bears in the Census Returns. Many more of these women, though unmarried, were also engaged in domestic duties, or were assisting their fathers or other near relatives in the details of business.’’⁴ The comment seemingly apologizes for demoting housewives to the unoccupied category.

In 1890, a Parliamentary committee was convened to consider improve­ments to the census, and Alfred Marshall was called to testify. Among his many reservations, he expressed dissatisfaction with the large numbers in the “Unoccupied” column and urged the committee to reduce them by adopting the German practice of describing married women as “depend­ents”.⁵ Following his advice, the 1891 Census of England and Wales restricted the Domestic Class to those employed in paid domestic service. The Unoccupied Class was simply struck from the list of categories.

In 1890, the British colony of New South Wales (soon to become part of the Commonwealth of Australia) shifted its terminology in the same direc­tion. Advocates of a clear emphasis on men as breadwinners won a decisive victory when it was agreed that wives would be classified as dependents unless they stipulated that they worked for pay. The chief census director believed that women's participation in productive labor could only lower men’s wages and the community’s standard of living.⁷ National statistics showing a low rate of female labor force participation would, he hoped, enhance the colony’s ability to attract British investment.

French census-takers postponed these problems by continuing to record occupations only on the household level. When they finally switched, in 1896, to individual enumeration, they fell into line with the new international standard. Domestic servants, once simply lumped along with family mem­bers under the occupation of the household head, were categorized with separate occupations. Family members providing services without pay, how­ever, were designated ‘‘inactive’’.⁸ This term sounds even more irrelevant than ‘‘unproductive’’, though perhaps less burdensome than ‘‘dependent’’.