Overview
- Explores how the allocation of household labour within the Dutch Empire developed, and to what extent they were affected by colonial connections in the heydays of colonialism between 1830 and 1940
- Brings together a wide array of new data on the household level – budget surveys, wage series – that is analysed quantitatively and qualitatively
- Analyses the impact of changes in the second half of the nineteenth century, when tax burdens were lowered for the Dutch working classes and labour protection and education for Dutch women and children were introduced
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History (PEHS)
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About this book
‘This book makes an important contribution to the history of household labour relations in two contrasting societies. It deserves a wide readership.’
—Anne Booth, SOAS University of London, UK
‘By exploring how colonialism affected women’s work in the Dutch Empire this carefully researched book urges us to rethink the momentous implications of colonial exploitation on gender roles both in periphery and metropolis.’
—Ulbe Bosma, the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
‘In this exciting and original book, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk exposes how colonial connections helped determine the status and position of women in both the Netherlands and Java. The effects of these connections continue to shape women’s lives in both colony and metropole today.’
—Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, UK
Recent postcolonial studies have stressed the importance of the mutual influences of colonialism on both colony and metropole. This book studies such colonial entanglements and their effects by focusing on developments in household labour in the Dutch Empire in the period 1830-1940. The changing role of households’, and particularly women’s, economic activities in the Netherlands and Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, forms an excellent case study to help understand the connections and disparities between colony and metropole.
The author contends that colonial entanglements certainly existed, and influenced developments in women’s economic role to an extent, both in Java and the Netherlands. However, during the nineteenth century, more and more distinctions in the visions and policies towards Dutch working class and Javanese peasant households emerged. Accordingly, a more sophisticated framework is needed to explain how and why such connections were – both intentionally and unintentionally – severed over time.Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- Female labour force
- Colonialism in the Netherlands and Java
- Dutch imperialism
- Economic history of the Dutch Empire
- Women's work
- Household living standards
- Batig Slot tax reforms
- Child labour legislation
- Women's education
- Household labour relations
- Javanese women
- Economic history of the Netherlands
- Economic history of Java
- Labour history
- Dutch colonialism
- Textile production
- Gender and economics
- History of real wages
Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk is Professor in Economic and Social History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, with a particular focus on the history of women’s and children’s labour.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Women, Work and Colonialism in the Netherlands and Java
Book Subtitle: Comparisons, Contrasts, and Connections, 1830–1940
Authors: Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Economic History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10528-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-10527-3Published: 16 May 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-10528-0Published: 07 May 2019
Series ISSN: 2662-6497
Series E-ISSN: 2662-6500
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 283
Number of Illustrations: 22 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Economic History, Imperialism and Colonialism, Gender and Economics, Labor History, Labor Economics, Education Economics