The Female Labour Force

婦女勞動力

Charles May, the first police magistrate, estimated in the 1870s that only one out of every six Chinese women in Hong Kong were either married or concubines, implying the rest being prostitutes.

The assumptions that women who were not married or concubines were necessarily prostitutes and that women only worked in prostitution were problematic. The estimates probably do not include those ‘respectable’ women of the indigenous population living in the rural areas.

Local Cantonese and Hakka village women, as well as Tanka boatwomen had historically worked, alongside with men, in the fields and on the coastal waterways. They contributed to the local agriculture, fisheries, and rural economy.

Additionally, economic development in the urban centres and contacts with foreign traders had created new opportunities for female participation in the labour force. With new social experiences, gender relations could be much more nuanced and diverse.

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Defying
Stereotypes

Driven by economic conditions and family responsibilities, women often shared the workplace with men. They were involved in all kinds of productive activities and hard manual labour. Their participation in the labour force defied any rigid polarisation of masculinity and femininity in gender representation and roles. To women labourers, wage labour provided or supplemented the family income. Often, they received lower wages than men.

Additionally, many in the local Cantonese population held prejudice against the Hakka, and the boat people were marginalised by much of the population residing on land. From this web in prejudice, women could find themselves living in different kinds and levels of inequality and marginalisation.

1

Rice harvesting in the New Territories, c.1910.

Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

Rice harvesting in the New Territories, c.1910. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

2

Women labourers.

Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries.

Women labourers. Courtesy of The University of Hong Kong Libraries.

3

A boatwoman working and carrying a baby on her back, c. 1930s.

Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

A boatwoman working and carrying a baby on her back, c. 1930s. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

4

Stone breaking, c.1920s.

Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

Stone breaking, c.1920s. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History.

5

A young woman breaking stones at a quarry, 1919.

Courtesy of the Public Records Office, Government Records Service.

A young woman breaking stones at a quarry, 1919. Courtesy of the Public Records Office, Government Records Service.