Was women's work bad for babies? A view from the 1911 census of England and Wales

The 1911 census of England and Wales asked married women special questions concerning the number of children they had borne and the number of these who had subsequently died. This article uses anonymized individual-level census returns from the 'Fertility' census to explore the relationship between women's work, fertility and child survival and concludes that contemporary allegations that women's labour force participation had a detrimental effect on their children's health cannot be proven. Rather, it is argued, a woman with a successful childbearing career was more likely to be reported as being a housewife - babies were bad for women's work.