Women’s Informal Market Work in Massachusetts, 1875–1920
Married women’s entrance into the market economy proceeded at a slow but steady pace between 1890 and 1910. That, at least, is the impression given by conventional census measures of the percentage with “gainful occupations,” which practically doubled in both the United States as a whole and in the heavily industrialized state of Massachusetts (see Table 1). This impression is misleading on at least two counts. Declines in self-reporting and enumerator bias may have overstated the increase in married women with gainful occupations. More important, dwindling opportunities for informal market activities, such as industrial homework, provision of services to boarders, and participation in a family farm or enterprise, may have countervailed increases in formal market participation. In Massachusetts, at least, married women’s specialization in non-market domestic labor probably increased.
Gender and Occupational Identity in a Canadian Census
Historians and social scientists encounter a range of methodolofical difficulties in their investigation of the patterns of work, income generation and occupational identity. Perhaps the largest challenge arises from the use of occupational designations such as those recorded in a national census or parish register. The authors use a Canadian census to show the limitations.
Daily weather variables and affective disorder admissions to psychiatric hospitals
Numerous studies have reported that admission rates in patients with affective disorders are subject to seasonal variation. Notwithstanding, there has been limited evaluation of the degree to which changeable daily meteorological patterns influence affective disorder admission rates. A handful of small studies have alluded to a potential link between psychiatric admission rates and meteorological variables such as environmental temperature (heat waves in particular), wind direction and sunshine. We used the Kruskal-Wallis test, ARIMA and time-series regression analyses to examine whether daily meteorological variables—namely wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, rainfall, hours of sunshine, sunlight radiation and temperature—influence admission rates for mania and depression across 12 regions in Ireland over a 31-year period. Although we found some very weak but interesting trends for barometric pressure in relation to mania admissions, daily meteorological patterns did not appear to affect hospital admissions overall for mania or depression. Our results do not support the small number of papers to date that suggest a link between daily meteorological variables and affective disorder admissions. Further study is needed.