Gender, Cigar and Cigarettes. Technological Change and National Patterns

This paper assumes that the employer’s choice of a particular organisation of production and, as a matter of fact, of a particular technology were not indifferent to gender. Labour markets were sexually differentiated, since women and men were considered to be distinct labour forces, separated by virtue of the differing roles they were supposed to play in the family economy – the breadwinner and the housewife – and of the characteristics associated to each of them as labourers. Technological decisions were not independent of the gender division of labour. The introduction of a new technology could imply the arrival of a male profession as in railways, or the substitution of male by female workers in labour intensive industries such as tobacco manufacturing. Technology and occupational segregation according to gender are highly correlated. However, these patterns are not universal. When the cigarette-making Bonsack machine was first introduced in the market in the 1880s a strict gender division of labour operated in all countries, but women and men tasks diverged enormously. Tobacco was manufactured mainly by men in countries like the US or Cuba and mainly by women in other countries, such as France or Spain. These differences were related to the labour market structure, to consumption patterns and to the organisation of the sector regarding taxation in each country; thus we find cases of monopoly-run and of non-monopolistic tobacco industries. Despite some exceptions, in general terms, during the 19 Century and before the mechanisation process started, female cigar and cigarette makers worked in countries where a fiscal tobacco monopoly existed, while men were in charge of the work –mainly cigarsin countries with a non-monopolistic industry, only in countries where the share of cigarettes was important in the overall consumption firms also hired women for manufacturing them.