Industrial Revolution and the Family Industrialization had a profound impact of the family by removing women and children from the world of work.

Impact on Families In the early industrial period families work together in factories as they had did on farms and in cottages. The father often acted as contractor for the family and parents disciplined their children Child labor generally was welcomed by these families but opposed by reformers Britain’s Factory Act of 1833 banned the employment of children under nine and limited the hours of older children this ended the tradition of families working together Long working hours – eleven a day – and exhaustion from physical work usually meant families had little time together once the Factory Act was passed.

Impact on Women Originally, women were a large part of the industrial workforce and did the same work as men in mines and their smaller hands were particularly desirable in the textile factories. Factors for gendering work Men did not want to compete with women for jobs the difficulties of being a mother on factory time the intimate working conditions of men and women working together Legislation forbidding women from working in mines was passed in 1842.

Married women of all classes were expected to stay out of the workforce and remain in the domestic sphere. Initially, middle class women worked alongside their husbands as managers of factories or as merchandisers of goods, but this began to change as the industrial system become established. When married women needed to worked it was usually in the non-industrial sector of the economy.