The Hidden Producers: Women's Household Production During the Great Depression

Traditionally, European and North American cultures have defined men as the "breadwinners," while women have been assigned responsibility for household management and childcare. Men have been expected to earn a "family wage" to support not only themselves but a wife and children. Concentrating on examining the "myth of the family wage" in Canada, we explore some of the significant ways in which rural and urban married women outside the paid labor force were able to contribute to the family economy during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Our results demonstrate the centrality of married women's economic eonctibutions to the family, particularly in times of economic duress.