Abstract

The present essay provides a historiographical overview of the last two decades in relation to the relationships between economic history and the history of women’s work, focusing on specific historiographical and thematic approaches that, often overlapping, have produced relevant research works and outcomes in terms of methodology and content, for the Italian economic history and more generally for similar historiographical traditions of western Europe. After a short introduction about some pioneer studies that established direct connections between, on the one hand, economic history, and, on the other, women’s work and a gendered approach, the article adopts a transversal approach, and discusses a range of crucial issues on women, work, and economics in pre-industrial societies: women and guilds, economic and demographic growth and women’s work, calculation of the FLFPR, “industrious revolutionµ, and “little divergenceµ. In addition, it explores recent contributions from feminist economics research to the topic of the family economy (productive and reproductive work, care work, and domestic work), and presents the GaW project and the “verb-orientedµ methodology