Trabajando a cubierto

Abstract

This article examines the characteristics of female jobs in civil and religious institutions during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It further seeks to evaluate the visible and invisible advantages of these kinds of work in terms of security and compare them with the advantages of work in other sectors. To that end it examines the conditions and rules imposed by institutions —particularly charitable and religious— pay levels, purchasing power and evolution during the period of interest, up to the crisis and the changes that took place at the end of the period, with the transition from a “paternalistic” system of labour to a more contractually-based and less protective one.

Keywords

• Female Labour
• Female employment
• Hospitals
• Monasteries
• Purchasing Power
• Wages