Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T02:48:09.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The category of ‘family workers’ in International Labour Organization statistics (1930s–1980s): a contribution to the study of globalized gendered boundaries between household and market*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2017

Theresa Wobbe  and
Léa Renard
Theresa Wobbe
Affiliation:
Potsdam University, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, August Bebel Str. 189, D-14482 Potsdam, Germany E-mail: [email protected]
Léa Renard
Affiliation:
PACTE UMR 5194 Univ. Grenoble Alpes, PACTE, F-38000 Grenoble, France and Potsdam University, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, August Bebel Str. 189, D-14482 Potsdam, Germany E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses the role that statistical classifications play in creating gendered boundaries in the world of work. The term ‘family worker’ first became a statistical category in various Western national statistics around 1900. After 1945, it was established as a category of the International Labour Organization (ILO) labour force concept, and since then it has been extended to the wider world by way of the UN System of National Accounts. By investigating the term ‘family worker’ from the perspective of internationally comparable statistical classification, this article offers an empirical insight into how and why particular concepts of work become ‘globalized’. We argue that the statistical term ‘economically active people’ was extended to unpaid family workers, whereas the distinction between family work and housework was increasingly based on scientific evidence. This reclassification of work is an indication of its growing comparability within an economic observation scheme. The ILO generated and authorized that global discourse, and, as such, attested to an increasingly global form of knowledge and communication about the status of gender and work.

Keywords

family workersgendered boundariesglobalizationInternational Labour Organizationstatistical categorization
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , November 2017 , pp. 340 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is dedicated to Sabine Ridischhauser (4 August 1962–17 June 2017). We would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Global History and the reviewers for their valuable comments. We thank the German National Science Foundation (DFG) for financing the German–French research collaboration ‘The metamorphosis of equality’ (WO 550/6-2) from 2011 to 2016, and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for funding the ‘International Labour Organization as Producer of Statistical Knowledge’ Conference, Käthe Hamburger International Centre ‘Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History’ (re: work), Humbold University of Berlin, 25–26 February 2016. Theresa Wobbe thanks the Käthe Hamburger International Centre for support during her fellowship year 2014–15, and Martin Bemmann and Gerdien Jonker. Léa Renard thanks Theres Matthieß. An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH), Berlin, 17–19 September 2015.

References

1 Gerson, Judith M. and Peiss, Kathy, ‘Boundaries, negotiation, consciousness: reconceptualizing gender relations’, Social Problems, 32, 1985, p. 319 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fuchs Epstein, Cynthia, ‘Workplace boundaries: conceptions and creations’, Social Research, 56, 3, 1989, pp. 571–590 Google Scholar.

2 Topalov, Christian, ‘A revolution in representations of work: the emergence over the 19th century of the statistical category “occupied population” in France, Great Britain, and the United States’, Revue Française de Sociologie, 42, supplement, 2001, p. 82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowker, Geoffrey C. and Leigh Star, Susan, Sorting things out: classification and its consequences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Epstein, ‘Workplace boundaries’; Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, ‘Great divides: the cultural, cognitive, and social base of the global subordination of women’, American Sociological Review, 72, 2007, pp. 1–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goffman, Erving, ‘The arrangement between the sexes’, Theory and Society, 4, 1977, pp. 301–331 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lamont, Michèle and Molnár, Virág, ‘The study of boundaries in the social sciences’, Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 2002, pp. 167–195 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reskin, Barbara F. and Branch McBrier, Debra, ‘Why not ascription? Organizations’ employment of male and female managers’, American Sociological Review, 65, 2, 2000, pp. 210–233 Google Scholar; Ridgeway, Cecilia L., Framed by gender: how gender inequality persists in the modern world, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Wobbe, Theresa, ‘Making up people: Berufsstatistische Klassifikation, geschlechtliche Kategorisierung und wirtschaftliche Inklusion um 1900 in Deutschland’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 41, 2012, pp. 41–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’.

6 Patriarca, Silvana, ‘Gender trouble: women and the making of Italy’s active population, 1861–1936’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 3, 2, 1998, p. 147 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Folbre, Nancy and Abel, Marjorie, ‘Women’s work and women’s households: gender bias in the U.S. census’, Social Research, 56, 3, 1989, p. 547 Google Scholar.

8 For England and Wales, see Hakim, Catherine, ‘Census reports as documentary evidence: the census commentaries 1801–1951’, Sociological Review, 28, 3, 1980, pp. 551–580 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Higgs, Edward, ‘Women, occupations and work in the nineteenth century censuses’, History Workshop, 23, 2, 1987, pp. 59–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For France, see Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’. For Germany, see Wobbe, ‘Making up people’. For Italy, see Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’. For the United Staes, see Anderson, Margo, ‘The history of women and the history of statistics’, Journal of Women’s History, 4, 1, 1992, pp. 14–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Folbre and Abel‚ ‘Women’s work’, p. 551.

10 Hakim, ‘Census reports’, p. 554.

11 Anderson Conk, Margo, ‘Occupational classification in the United States census: 1870–1940’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 9, 1, 1978, p. 118 Google Scholar.

12 Abel, Marjorie and Folbre, Nancy, ‘A methodology for revising estimates: female market participation in the U.S. before 1940’, Historical Methods, 23, 4, 1990, pp. 167–176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Folbre, Nancy, ‘The unproductive housewife: her evolution in nineteenth-century economic thought’, Signs, 16, 3, 1991, p. 482 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Folbre, and Abel, , ‘Women’s work’; Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’; Marilyn Waring, If women counted: a new feminist economics, San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1988 Google Scholar; Bjørnholt, Margunn and McKay, Ailsa, eds., Counting on Marilyn Waring: new advances in feminist economics, 2nd edn, Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014 Google Scholar.

13 Waring, If women counted; Bjørnholt and McKay, Counting on Marilyn Waring; Folbre and Abel, ‘Women’s work’; Cohen, Philip N. and Huffman, Matt L., ‘Individuals, jobs, and labor markets: the devaluation of women’s work’, American Sociological Review, 68, 3, 2003, pp. 443–463 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, Philip N., ‘The gender division of labour: “keeping house” and occupational segregation in the United States’, Gender & Society, 18, 2, 2004, pp. 239–252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Boris, Eileen and Prügl, Elisabeth, ‘Introduction’, in Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Homeworkers in global perspective: invisible no more, New York/London: Routledge, 1996, p. 7 Google Scholar; Prügl, Elisabeth, The global construction of gender: home-based work in the political economy of the 20th century, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999 Google Scholar.

15 Prügl, Elisabeth, ‘Sexual divisions, gender constructions: a historical meaning of homework in western Europe’, in Boris and Prügl, Homeworkers in global perspective, p. 32 Google Scholar.

16 Boris and Prügl, ‘Introduction’, p. 10; See also the respective case studies in the volume.

17 Prügl, Global construction of gender, p. 1.

18 Hakim, ‘Census reports’; Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’.

19 For France, see Martini, Manuela, ‘When unpaid workers need a legal status: family workers and reforms to labour rights in twentieth-century France’, International Review of Social History, 59, 2014, pp. 247–278 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Germany, see Renard, Léa, ‘The grey zones between work and non-work: statistical and social placing of “family workers” in Germany (1880–2010)’, in Olivier Giraud, Theresa Wobbe, and Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann, eds., Arguing about categories, London: Berghahn Publisher (in preparation) Google Scholar ; Wobbe, Theresa, Renard, Léa, and Müller, Katja, ‘Nationale und globale Deutungsmodelle des Geschlechts im arbeitsstatistischen sowie arbeitsrechtlichen Klassifikationssystem: ein vergleichstheoretischer Beitrag (1882–1992)’, Soziale Welt, 68, 2, 2017, pp. 63–85 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 van Nederveen Meerkerk, Elise, Neunsinger, Silke, and Hoerder, Dirk, ‘Domestic workers of the world: histories of domestic work as global labor history’, in Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Silke Neunsinger, and Dirk Hoerder, eds., Towards a global history of domestic and caregiving workers, Leiden: Brill, 2015, p. 1 Google Scholar; Hoerder, Dirk, ‘Historical perspectives on domestic and care-giving workers’ migration: a global approach’, in ibid., p. 63 Google Scholar.

21 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The world’s women 2010: trends and statistics, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.K/19, New York: United Nations, 2010.

22 Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’; Topalov, Christian, ‘The invention of unemployment: language, classification, and social reform 1880–1910’, in Bruno Palier, ed., Comparing social welfare systems in Europe, vol. 1: Oxford Conference, France–United Kingdom, Paris: Service de l’Information et de la Communication, Mission Recherche et Expérimentation, 1996, pp. 493–507 Google Scholar; Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’.

23 Anderson Conk, ‘Occupational classifications’; Anderson Conk, Margo, The United States census and labor force change: a history of occupational statistics, 1870–1940, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1980 Google Scholar; Hakim, , ‘Census reports’; Raf Vanderstraeten, ‘Soziale Beobachtungsraster: eine wissenssoziologische Analyse statistischer Klassifikationsschemata’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 35, 3, 2006, pp. 193–211 Google Scholar; Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’; Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’; Wobbe, ‘Making up people’.

24 Robertson, Roland, Globalization: social theory and global culture, London: SAGE Publications, 1992 Google Scholar. For entangled global and transnational history, see Bayly, Christopher A., The birth of the modern world 1780–1914: global connections and comparisons, London: Blackwell, 2014 Google Scholar; Colley, Linda, The ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: a woman in world history, New York: Anchor Books, 2007 Google Scholar; Zimmermann, Andrew, Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German empire, and the globalization of the New South, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For world culture and world society, see Meyer, John W., Boli, John, Thomas, George M., and Ramirez, Francisco O., ‘World society and the nation-state’, American Journal of Sociology, 103, 1, 1997, pp. 144–181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Osterhammel, Jürgen, ‘Globalizations’, in Jerry H. Bentley, ed., The Oxford handbook of world history, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 89–104 Google Scholar.

26 Strang, David and Meyer, John, ‘Institutional conditions for diffusion’, Theory and Society, 22, 4, 1993, p. 490 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Keck, Margaret E. and Sikkink, Kathryn, Activists beyond borders: advocacy networks in international politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 171–172 Google Scholar.

28 Strang and Meyer, ‘Institutional conditions for diffusion’, p. 491.

29 Ibid., p. 506.

30 Desrosières, Alain, The politics of large numbers: a history of statistical reasoning, trans. Camille Nash, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998 Google Scholar; Heintz, Bettina, ‘Numerische Differenz: Überlegungen zu einer Soziologie des (quantitativen) Vergleichs’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 39, 3, 2010, pp. 162–181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Espeland, Wendy N. and Stevens, Mitchell L., ‘Commensuration as a social process’, Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1998, pp. 401–436 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hacking, Ian, The taming of chance, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press 1990 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Porter, Theodore M., Trust in numbers: the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995 Google Scholar.

31 Desrosières, Politics of large numbers, p. 8.

32 Heintz, Bettina, ‘Welterzeugung durch Zahlen: Modelle politischer Differenzierung in internationalen Statistiken 1948–2010’, Soziale Systeme, 18, special issue, 2012, pp. 7–39 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heintz, Bettina, ‘“Wir leben im Zeitalter der Vergleichung”: Perspektiven einer Soziologie des Vergleichs’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 45, 5, 2016, pp. 305–323 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heintz, Bettina, ‘Good – better – best: why do ranking orders proliferate in contemporary society?’, in Willibald Steinmetz, ed., The force of comparison: a new perspective on modern European history and the contemporary world, Oxford: Berghahn, 2017 (in press)Google Scholar; Bühler, Martin and Heintz, Bettina, ‘Seen but not noticed: the role of comparisons in economic sociology’, Economic Sociology Newsletter, 18, 3, 2017 (in press)Google Scholar.

33 Espeland and Stevens, ‘Commensuration as a social process’, p. 408.

34 Porter, Trust in numbers, p. ix; for social quantification, see p. 8.

35 Ibid., p. 77.

36 Zerubavel, Eviatar, ‘Lumping and splitting: notes on social classification’, Sociological Forum, 11, 3, 1996, p. 421 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Hakim, ‘Census reports’, p. 554.

38 Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’, pp. 83–5. See also Hakim, ‘Census reports’; Wobbe, ‘Making up people’; Vanderstraeten, ‘Soziale Beobachtungsraster’; Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’; Folbre and Abel, ‘Women’s work’; Renard, ‘Grey zones’; Anderson, ‘History of women’.

39 Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’, p. 85.

40 Wobbe, ‘Making up people’, p. 47.

41 Renard, ‘Grey zones’.

42 Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’.

43 Hakim, ‘Census reports’, p. 556.

44 Ibid., p. 557.

45 Cited in ibid., p. 558.

46 Anderson, Margo, ‘(Only) white men have class: reflections on early 19th-century occupational classification systems’, Work and Occupations, 21, 1994, p. 26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Ibid., p. 8.

48 Ibid., p. 28. See also Christian Topalov, ‘L’individu comme convention: le cas des statistiques professionnelles du XIXe siècle en France, en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis’, Genèses, 31, 1999, pp. 48–75.

49 Topalov, ‘Revolution in representations of work’, p. 98.

50 Rodgers, Gerry, Lee, Eddy, Swepston, Lee, and Van Daele, Jasmien, The International Labour Organization and the quest for social justice, 1919–2009, Geneva: ILO, 2009, pp. 19–20 Google Scholar.

51 Beaud, Jean-Pierre and Prévost, Jean-Guy, ‘Statistics as the science of government: the stillborn British empire statistical bureau, 1918–20’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 33, 3, 2015, pp. 369–391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Speich Chassé, Daniel, ‘Technical internationalism and economic development at the founding moment of the UN system’, in Marc Frey, Sönke Kunkel, and Corinna R. Unger, eds., International organizations and development, 1945–1990, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 23–45 Google Scholar.

53 Brian, Eric, ‘Statistique administrative et internationalisme statistique pendant la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle’, Histoire & Mesure, 4, 3/4, 1989, pp. 201–224 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Randeraad, Nico, States and statistics in the nineteenth century: Europe by numbers, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011 Google Scholar; Randeraad, Nico, ‘The International Statistical Congress (1853–1876): knowledge transfers and their limits’, European History Quarterly, 41, 2011, pp. 50–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’, p. 149.

56 Nixon, James W., A history of the International Statistical Institute, 1885–1960, The Hague: International Statistical Institute, 1960 Google Scholar; Marc J. Ventresca, ‘Global policy fields: conflicts and settlements in the emergence of organized international attention to official statistics, 1853–1947’, Institute for Policy Research Working Paper WP-02-45, 2002, http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/docs/workingpapers/2002/IPR-WP-02-45.pdf (consulted 18 July 2017).

57 Treaty of Paris, Part XIII, Labour, arts. 387–427, International Labour Organization Constitution, 1919, in Der Vertrag von Versailles (1919), Der Friedensvertrag zwischen Deutschland und den alliierten und assoziierten Mächten nebst dem Schlußprotokoll und der Vereinbarung betreffend die militärische Besetzung der Rheinlande. Amtlicher Text der Entente und amtliche deutsche Übertragung. Auf Grund der endgültigen, neu durchgesehenen amtlichen Revision. Im Auftrage des Auswärtigen Amtes, 2nd edn, Berlin, 1924, pp. 207–20.

58 Ibid., preamble.

59 Ibid., art. 396. See also Kott, Sandrine and Droux, Joelle, eds., Globalizing social rights: the International Labour Organization and beyond, Geneva: ILO, 2013 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Kott, Sandrine and Droux, Joelle, ‘A global history written from the ILO’, in Kott and Droux, Globalizing social rights, p. 3 Google Scholar.

61 For the context of the League of Nations, see Miller, Carol, ‘“Geneva – the key to equality”: inter-war feminists and the League of Nations’, Women’s History Review, 3, 2, pp. 219–245 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Regarding the ILO, see Natchkova, Nora and Schoeni, Céline, ‘The ILO, feminists and expert networks: the challenges of a protective policy (1919–1934)’, in Kott and Droux, Globalizing social rights, pp. 49–64 Google Scholar; Prügl, , Global construction of gender, pp. 25–55 Google Scholar; Wikander, Ulla, ‘Demands on the ILO by internationally organized women in 1919’, in Jasmien Van Daele, Magaly Rodríguez García, Geert Van Goethem, and Marcel van der Linden, eds., ILO histories: essays on the International Labour Organization and its impact on the world during the twentieth century, Bern: Peter Lang, 2010, pp. 67–89 Google Scholar; Zimmermann, Susan, ‘Night work for white women, bonded labour for “native” women? Contentious traditions and the globalization of gender-specific labour protection and legal equality politics, 1926 to 1939’, in Sara Kimble and Marion Röwekamp, eds., New perspectives on European women’s legal history, eds., New York: Routledge, 2016, pp. 394–427 Google Scholar.

62 Year-book of labour statistics 3, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1938, p. v.

63 Ibid. Similar comments run like a thread through the Year-books until 1945–46 (vol. 9).

64 Year-book of labour statistics 2, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1937, p. 1.

65 Ibid., p. 5, no. 1, 9, 10.

66 Ibid., p. 5, n. 9.

67 Ibid., p. 5.

68 Ibid., p. 5, n. 11. For Italy, see Patriarca, ‘Gender trouble’.

69 Cussó, Roser, ‘L’activité statistique de l’Organisation économique et financière de la Société des Nations: un nouveau lien entre pouvoir et quantification’, Histoire & Mesure, 27, 2, 2012, pp. 107–136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nichols, Charles K., ‘The statistical work of the League of Nations in economic, financial, and related fields’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 37, 219, 1942, pp. 336–342 Google Scholar.

70 League of Nations, Statistics of the gainfully-occupied population: definitions and classifications, recommended by the Committee of Statistical Experts, C 226. M. 128. 1938, II. Appendix 1, Studies and reports on statistical methods, no. 1, Geneva: League of Nations, 1938, p. 5; Work of the Committee of Statistical Experts during its sixth session, Report of the Committee, submitted to the Council on 25 May 1937; League of Nations, Official Journal, May–June 1937, pp. 433ff.

71 League of Nations, Statistics of the gainfully-occupied population, p. 5.

72 Ibid., p. 6.

73 Ibid., p. 9.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid., p. 10.

76 Ibid., p. 17.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid., p. 11. The new category of ‘branch’ was created around 1900. See Rudischhauser, Sabine, Geregelte Verhältnisse: eine Geschichte des Tarifvertragsrechts in Deutschland und Frankreich (1890–1918/19), Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 2016 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sabine Rudischhauser, ‘Metal, textile, leather: inventing branches, organizing labour’, unpublished paper for ‘European Social Science History’ conference, Valencia, 30 May–2 April 2016, panel ‘Categorizing work and livelihood’.

79 League of Nations, Statistics of the gainfully-occupied population, Annex I, specimen table, p. 20.

80 Year-book of labour statistics, 9: 1945/46, Montreal: International Labour Office, 1947, p. viii.

81 Ward, Michael, Quantifying the world: UN ideas and statistics, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004, p. 45 Google Scholar.

82 Morgan, Mary S., The history of econometric ideas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Speich, Daniel, ‘The use of global abstractions: national income accounting in the period of imperial decline’, Journal of Global History, 6, 2011, pp. 7–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 International Labour Office, International Labour Conference: thirty-third session, report of the director-general, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1950, p. 77 Google Scholar.

84 Arndt, Heinz W., Economic development: the history of an idea, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987 Google Scholar; Clavin, Patricia, Securing the world economy: the reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920–1946, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 Google Scholar.

85 International Labour Office, Employment, unemployment and labour force statistics: a study of methods, report prepared for the sixth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Montreal, 4–12 August 1947, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1948, p. 1.

86 Ibid.

87 Durand, John D., ‘Appendix A: development of the labour force concept, 1930–40’, in Louis J. Ducoff and Margaret Jarman Hagood, eds., Labor force definition and measurement, New York: Social Science Research Council, 1947, p. 80 Google Scholar.

88 Ducoff and Jarman Hagood, Labor force definition and measurement, p. 1.

89 International Labour Office, Employment, unemployment and labour force, pp. 9–10. See also League of Nations, Statistics of the gainfully-occupied population, p. 9.

90 International Labour Office, Employment, unemployment and labour force, p. 9.

91 Ibid., p. 10.

92 Ibid.

93 Year book of labour statistics, 12: 1947/1948, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1948, p. 2; Benería, Lourdes, ‘The enduring debate over unpaid labour’, International Labour Review, 138, 3, 1999, pp. 287–309 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Braig, Marianne, Mexiko – ein anderer Weg der Moderne: weibliche Erwerbsarbeit, häusliche Dienste und Organisation des Alltags, Cologne: Böhlau, 1992, pp. 57–103 Google Scholar; Orozco Rocha, Karina, ‘El trabajo del cuidado en el ámbito familiar: principales debates’, Debate Feminista, 44, 2011, pp. 19–32 Google Scholar; Mujeres, ONU, Güezmes Garcia, Ana, and de la Paz López Barajas, Maria, ‘Trabajo no remunerado y uso del tiempo: bases empíricas para su estudio’, Debate Feminista, 44, 2011, pp. 3–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geográfica, Secretaria de Económica de Estadística, 7 censo general de publicación de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Martes 6 de Junio de 1950.

96 Year book of labour statistics 1951/52, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1952, p. 14.

97 Speich Chassé, Daniel, Die Erfindung des Bruttosozialprodukts: globale Ungleichheit in der Wissensgeschichte der Ökonomie, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013, p. 121 Google Scholar.

98 Boserup, Ester, Woman’s role in economic development, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970 Google Scholar; Waring, If women counted.

99 Speich, ‘Use of global abstractions’.

100 Engle Merry, Sally, ‘Measuring the world: indicators, human rights, and global governance’, Current Anthropology, 52, 3, 2011, pp. 83–95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Speich Chassé, ‘Technical internationalism’, p. 24.

102 Ibid; Frederick Cooper, ‘Writing the history of development’, Journal of Modern European History, 8, 1, pp. 5–23.

103 International Labour Office, International standard classification of occupations: minor groups, Report II, prepared for the eighth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Geneva: International Labour Office, November 1954, p. 30.

104 International Labour Office, The eighth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Geneva, 23 November–3 December 1954, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1955, p. 39 Google Scholar.

105 Ward, Quantifying the world, p. 37.

106 Speich, ‘Use of global abstractions’; Speich Chassé, Erfindung des Bruttosozialprodukts.

107 ‘Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population, employment, unemployment, and underemployment’, adopted by the thirteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, October 1982, in Reports and related documents of the thirteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, October 18–29, 1982, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1982, Appendix I.

108 International Labour Organization, Report prepared for the thirteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, October 18–29, 1982, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1982, report ICLS/13/II, p. 13 Google Scholar.

109 ‘Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population’, Concepts and Definitions, para 5.

110 United Nations, Principles and recommendations for the 1970 population censuses, second printing, ST/STAT/SERM/44, New York: United Nations, 1969, p. 45 Google Scholar.

111 ‘Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population’, Concepts and Definitions, paras. 2–20.

112 Ibid., para. 9(a), (b).

113 Waring, If women counted, p. 77.

114 Hussmanns, Ralf, Mehran, Farhard, and Verma, Vijay, Surveys of economically active population, employment, unemployment and underemployment: an ILO-manual on concepts and methods, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1992, p. 14 Google Scholar.

115 ‘Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population’, objectives and scope, para. 1.

116 Ibid., paras. 14–20.

117 Ibid.; Benería, ‘Enduring debate’, p. 289.

118 ‘Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population’, para. 30(1).

119 Ibid.

120 Ibid., para. 30(2).

121 Ibid., para. 30(1).

122 United Nations, International Labour Organization, Handbook on measuring the economically active population and related characteristics, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.F/102, Studies in Methods series F, no. 102, New York: United Nations, 2009 Google Scholar.

123 Porter, Trust in numbers, p. ix.

124 International Labour Organization, Statistics of labour force, employment, unemployment and underemployment, second item on the Agenda, Report II prepared for the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1983, p. 13 Google Scholar.

125 International Labour Office, Employment, unemployment, and labour force statistics, p. 39.

126 International Labour Office, Eighth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, p. 39.

127 Zimmermann, Bénédicte, Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland: zur Entstehung einer sozialen Kategorie, Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2006 Google Scholar.

128 For the concept of a ‘centre of calculation’, see Latour, Bruno, Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987 Google Scholar.

129 Goldin, Claudia, ‘The quiet revolution that transformed women’s employment, education, and family’, American Economic Review, 96, 2006, pp. 1–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 Berkovitch, Nitza, From motherhood to citizenship: women’s rights and international organizations, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berkovitch, Nitza, ‘The emergence and transformation of the international women’s movement’, in J. Boli and G. M. Thomas, eds., Constructing world culture: international nongovernmental organizations since 1875, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999 Google Scholar; Iriye, Akira, Global community: the role of international organizations in the making of the contemporary world, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reinalda, Bob, ed., Routledge handbook of international organization, London and New York: Routledge, 2013 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vauchez, Antoine, ‘Transnationale Expertenfelder als schwache Felder: der Entwurf des ersten Weltgerichtshofs und der Entstehung eines internationalen Expertentums’, Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 24, 2, 2014, pp. 201–226 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zimmermann, ‘Night work’, pp. 121–3; Zimmermann, Susan, ‘The International Labour Organization, transnational women’s networks, and the question of unpaid work in the interwar world’, in Clare Midgley, Alison Twells and Julie Carlier, eds., Women in transnational history: connecting the local and the global, New York: Routledge, 2016, pp. 33–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

131 Goffman, ‘Arrangement between the sexes’, p. 326.

132 Porter, Trust in numbers, p. ix.