[Wo]manpower. A quantitative overview of the female labour supply in the Zone A of the AMG, 1945–1947

The paper aims to provide a general overview in a quantitative and comparative perspective on women’s labour market participation in the three major cities of the Zone A – administrated by the Allied Military Government (AMG) – between 1945 and 1947, namely in Trieste/Trst, Gorizia/Gorica, and Pula/Pola. In particular, the attention will be focused on the characteristics of the absorption in the urban labour market of women workers, to those of female unemployment and, finally, to those related to the definitive massive entrance of women into the sphere of the industrial wage labour (i.e. urban industrial proletarianization) in the Upper Adriatic economic environment in the first years of the WWII post-war period. As for the sources, the paper is based on the documentation of the Ufficio Regionale del Lavoro e della Massima Occupazione of Trieste and on those of the British War Office.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erica Mezzoli holds a PhD in East European History from the Università degli Studi di Trieste, and collaborates with Istituto Livio Saranz (Trieste). Her research interests include economic, social and labour history in Early Modern and Modern Times. Alongside Tullia Catalan, she is the co-editor of Antislavismo. Discorsi e pratiche in Italia e nell’Europa sudorientale tra Otto e Novecento, a monographic issue of “Memoria e Ricerca” (3/2018).