Who worked with what in the 1500s?

In the 1500s, the Swedish State administration expanded. A new administration was created, the armed forces grew and the Crown ran its own production in agriculture, handcraft and mining.

This expansion led to the creation of new forms of work and new opportunities for provision.

What was unique about the expansion of the Swedish Crown was that it left behind a wealth of source material, including very thorough accounts from large estates. All of this carefully recorded information has made it possible for researcher Christopher Pihl to study in detail which factors came into play when the work was organised and the significance of the work for the people of the time.

“The source material from the Crown's estates is fantastic. It's as far back in time as you'll find detailed sources”, says Christopher Pihl, who in the winter defended his thesis about which people got which jobs in the 1500s.

In his work on the dissertation he could see that, with the expansion of the Crown, men took over a number of professions that were previously considered as typical women's occupations, such as brewing. The view of the knowledge behind the craft changed and the work was considered more skilled.

“The men who took over the women's work gained a stronger professional identity than their female counterparts. Men became masters whilst women were often thought of simply as 'womenfolk'”, Christopher Pihl explains.

It was not only gender that opened or closed doors in the 1500s. Social status and marital status also played a role in the type of profession available. Unlike today, it was important in the 1500s that people aspiring to higher positions were married. This was particularly important for women, and consequently, all women in higher positions were “wives”.

In his research, Christopher Pihl has also compared the salaries of men and women. In lower positions such as farmhand and maid occupations, men and women earned roughly the same. But if we look further up the occupational ladder, women's salaries begin to slide and come to around 60-80 per cent of those of men. In addition, women soon hit the “glass ceiling”. Certain professions and positions were quite simply exclusively for men.

“Work and its significance must firstly be understood as something changeable, and secondly that it bears distinct traits of continuity. To be able to see clear patterns that still exist today is significant for our understanding of how the gender coding or salary grade of a type of work can change”, says Christopher Pihl.