Economist Joyce Burnette can't go online to conduct her personal research. Very little, if any, research on her subject has been published. So when Professor Burnette needs to gather more information, she travels to small country towns across England, where she can be found in the town's archives.
Burnette presented the latest updates on her research of women who worked on English farms from the period of 1750 through 1850. The weeks and months she's spent in small town archives has resulted in the compilation of the financial records of 96 farms — an amazing sampling for her data collection of farm accounts.
What data she finds is hand-written in ledger books. While the records are surprisingly accurate, there is no male-female determination or child-adult designation, which makes the collection more difficult.
She's been able to gather solid information on the wages women earned on farms and the percentage of women who made up the farm workforce. Over time, what she's discovered is that women's wages weren't static. "The changes in women's wages followed similar changes in men's wages, though the gap between the two increased because men already were making more."
She's also debunking some long-held beliefs on the role of women on the farm. The first accurate census conducted in the region came in 1851 and showed the female agricultural workforce at 4.7 percent; her own research indicates the figure would be over 10 percent.
Another long-standing belief was that women's wages were determined by gender. Burnette has studied the productivity of the workers and believes "wages were not determined by gender, but by market forces."
Her most recent research delves into the role of children working on farms and the compensation they received relative to men and women workers.