Bardsley, Sandy , 'Women’s Work Reconsidered: Gender and Wage Differentiation in Late Medieval England', Past & Present 165 (1999), 3-29


Quick Summary

The wages of unskilled female labourers remained consistent relative to the wages of men after the Black Death

  • Women labourers earned about 67-73 per cent of the wages earned by men
  • Some historians believe the Black Death resulted in a rise in women’s status
  • Payment of workers was calculated according to their gender, age, skill and health
Key Conclusion

Bardsley concludes that the rate of rural women’s wages relative to men’s wages remained consistent before and after the Black Death. Surviving documents from the Westminster manor of Ebury, and evidence from the East Riding of Yorkshire, reveals that the wages of unskilled female labourers earned about 67-73 per cent of comparable male wages (p. 29).

Content Overview

The article contributes to an ongoing debate about the economic fortunes of women following the Black Death. Some historians have suggested that the plague resulted in a temporary rise in women’s status, while other have argued that women’s position relative to men remained fairly consistent across the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Bardsley’s findings lend strong support to the latter view. Central to this debate has been the issue of women’s wages, and in the first section of the article Bardsley explores this historiography in detail (pp. 5-11).

Further Findings

The article also finds that the payment of workers was calculated according to their gender, age, skill and health. While the wages of unskilled workers appear to have increased relative to skilled workers after the Black Death, the wages of female workers remained constant. The labour force at harvest time was structured so that most male workers occupied higher-paid positions while most female workers occupied lower-paid positions. This leads Bardsley to conclude: ‘Both before and after the Black Death, women continued to be part of the motley crew of workers considered second-rate… and paid a lower wage’ (p. 29).

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