Informal transfers, men, women and children: Family economy and informal social security in early 20th century Finnish households

Due to their role in discussions on community solidarity and social security in rich and poor countries alike, informal transfers between households have gradually become established as a research topic in economic and social history. Qualitative research has tended to emphasize the female-dominated nature of informal assistance. While research on intra-household resource allocation has demonstrated the potential for discerning gendered outcomes with household level data, quantitative research on informal assistance tends to ascribe a singular, “family” logic to transfers. Using an early 20th century Finnish household budget survey, this article analyses the differences in the statistical determinants of the reception of informal transfers in cash and in kind in the context of gendered household economy. Record linkage and statistical inference are utilized to reveal the sources of the different types of transfers and show how they were related to the position and welfare of men, women and children within households. The transfers in cash were actually controlled by men in the male breadwinner families of the data, exhibited elements of informal insurance, and were linked to trade union membership. The transfers in kind appeared to be the realm of particularly those women who were mainly engaged in unpaid work in households. At the same time, however, they were linked to outbound reciprocity in cash, indicating implicit dependence on male earnings.