Women in the workplace, Belfast c.1945-1998: an oral history

This oral history, collecting fifty women's accounts of paid work in Belfast c.1945-1998, will explore the underestimated centrality of employment to women's identity, experience, and life trajectory, illuminating the neglected history of women's work in the post-war city, and giving voice to the distinct experiences of Northern Irish women so often forgotten in broader social histories of women in twentieth-century Ireland.



The second half of the twentieth century witnessed extraordinary shifts in gender roles. A dramatic increase in women's participation in paid work saw them outnumber men in the Northern Irish labour market by the end of this period. Yet social attitudes towards women's work have not kept pace with these changes and women's employment trajectories have received limited academic attention. Histories and public commemorations of labour and industrial heritage have prioritised men's work and masculinity, while histories of women have often focused on feminist activism or women's experience of the Troubles. More broadly, scholarly focus has been on sectarian political conflict in Belfast, leaving gaps in understandings of the city's social history and its place in wider histories of twentieth century Ireland and the UK.



This project will address such historiographical lacunae, contributing to scholarship that is broadening conceptions of Belfast's social history beyond the familiar sectarian frame, whilst in turn diversifying understanding of the conflict through study of its impact on women and their involvement in the labour market. The study is situated within intersecting transnational research contexts focused on the value of women's work, deindustrialization and social mobility, which locate industrial decline, labour market and employment shifts, and modified patterns of economic welfare at the heart of social change in the post-war period. Here, scholars are recognising the compelling need to diversify perspectives and put women's experience of education and work at the centre of their fields of study. From there, they are also providing historical perspective on, and critiquing narratives about, a range of contemporary global issues, from cultures of work, to widening social and economic inequality, and the politics of class.



This research will consider women's experience of: industrial work and the loss of it in the wake of deindustrialization; social mobility and the impact of new educational and employment opportunities in expanding public and service sectors; the rise of temporary and part-time employment, and the role of often poorly paid work, labelled by academics as the feminisation of labour; and trade unions, feminist politics and women's articulation of the value of their work and their challenge to workplace inequalities. The nexus of ethno-religious, class and generational differences which shaped women's experiences of work will also be foregrounded throughout the thesis.



Methodologically, the study will build on approaches used in the identified research contexts, where the value of engaging with the big history of social, economic and cultural trends through the 'little histories' of ordinary people is understood. People's lived realities illuminate the diverse personal motivations and experiences that underpin broad trends. Oral history is the obvious method by which to recover these lived realities, and oral historians are skilled in exploring the subjectivities of individual and collective memory. The newly collected oral testimonies of women's work-life stories in industrial, public and service sectors will be assessed alongside archival records, existing oral histories, government reports, social surveys and material public commemoration of women's work. In addition to forming the core primary evidence for the thesis, the intention is also to deposit these new oral history testimonies in a publicly accessible archive for future use.