Women and Children in Factories: Did Mechanization Increase the Demand for Low-Cost Labor in Sweden?

Did mechanization affect the employment of women and minors in the late nineteenth century? In this paper, we explore the idea that early factories used mechanization to substitute women and children for adult men to save on labor costs. We use a survey conducted in Sweden in 1879 to build a cross-sectional dataset that consists of establishments across different industries. We show a positive association between establishment size and the employment of women and minors. However, we do not find a meaningful association between mechanization and the employment of women and minors independent of establishment size. Instead, we show that the effect of mechanization was more likely mediated through establishment size. Industry-specific factors also played an important role, as some industries had a long history of being female-intensive.