Workers' Dilemmas

Originally published in 1996, Workers’ Dilemmas analyses the management skills of those with least resources, the women of the urban poor, and finds that there is an abundance of evidence on the high levels of managerial competence within this group. It is information which has largely been hidden from history. This study of poor women’s involvement in the world of work corrects this missing record.

For over a century (1850–1960s), women and children travelled from their urban homes in the East End of London to work in the hop picking fields of Kent and Hampshire. The scale of the annual migration and the complexity of neighbourhood and household organization it required to provide this volume of labour have escaped the literature. Drawing on a variety of historical records and on oral history, this book explores the high level of management and occupational skills possessed by the urban poor in their construction of household survival strategies. Above all this book highlights the key entrepreneurial role played by women in this labour market and the importance of the financial support provided by this regular seasonal labour for household survival.

Workers’ Dilemmas provides a fresh look at how work patterns, family structure and community networks interrelate and in the process challenges accepted ideas in the wider fields of anthropology and the sociology of work.