Sentiment and Prejudice: Francis Ysidro Edgeworth on Women's Wages

This article describes the evolution of Edgeworth's thought on women's wages and on the principle of "equal pay for equal work." We first document Edgeworth's early works on "exact utilitarianism" as an epistemic basis for his reflections upon women's wages. S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:History of political economy 2021-10, Vol.53 (5), p.799-832
Main Authors: Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, Cléo, Cot, Annie L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparable worth
Economic welfare
Economics
Economics and Finance
European History
History
Humanities and Social Sciences
Political economy
Prejudice
U.S. History
Utilitarianism
Wages & salaries
Women
World War I
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Summary:This article describes the evolution of Edgeworth's thought on women's wages and on the principle of "equal pay for equal work." We first document Edgeworth's early works on "exact utilitarianism" as an epistemic basis for his reflections upon women's wages. Second, we review his first writings on women's work and wages: early mentions in the 1870s, his book reviews published in the , and the substantial preface he wrote for the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1904 report on . Third, we document his 1922 British Association presidential address in relation to the burgeoning literature on women's work and wages within political economy at the time. Finally, we show that his 1923 follow-up article on women's wages and economic welfare constitutes an update of his "aristocratical utilitarianism" in the post-World War I context.
ISSN:0018-2702
1527-1919
DOI:10.1215/00182702-9395055