This book uses dynamic data from Dutch population registers and analytical techniques from the life course approach to investigate women’s changing position in the labour market, their role in pre-nuptial sexuality, and their contribution to marriage and fertility change in the Netherlands between 1880 and 1960.

Angélique Janssens is associate professor of economic and social history at the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Her research focuses on family history, women’s work and male breadwinning, and child mortality. She also leads a research project investigating the effects of familial factors and the disease environment on mortality and longevity in the Netherlands in the 19th-20th century.

Contents: Women and the demographic transition – Women, work and occupational careers – Work, marriage and prenuptial sexuality – Women, work and fertility.