Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 1 (2004), pp. 83–98

While previous studies of youth have concentrated on urban, commercial leisure developments, this article  scrutinises young women through the prism of their labour. It argues that young women's paid employment  and domestic labour were crucial to the family economy of the rural poor in inter-war England. However, they  were also subject to profound social, economic and cultural changes. In 1918 domestic service was the largest  employer of these women, offering limited income and leisure. Twenty years later, an increasing number were  entering industrial work in urban areas, prompting the decline of domestic and farm service and forging a new  pattern of migration from the countryside. 

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