The dynamics of ideology regarding women, men and their mutual interactions can only be understood by considering them in the context of the longue durée. Starting from this assumption, Alessandra Pescarolo, in Il lavoro delle donne nell'Italia contemporanea, analyses women's contribution to work and to Italy's economic development in the last two centuries. She argues that ideas on women's domesticity are rooted in ancient times and that working women have been seen and understood as subaltern to ideals on patriarchy and to modern economic theory, which ‘apparently does not consider gender, but in fact it redefines women's subordination in a new way’ (p. 10).

The book is composed of an introduction and ten chapters and adopts a chronological approach, using both primary and secondary sources. It first introduces the centuries-old vision of women and the nation's legal framework: in this context, the shift from nineteenth-century legal norms that led to the enactment of the Pisanelli code, far from improving women's status within the still-patriarchal Italian society, contributed to shape the male breadwinner model, thus further emphasising the prominent role of men against that of women, whose contribution in building a family was by no means acknowledged.

The book then moves to a close examination of the peninsula's economic fabric and of how women and men lived within their status and their relationship with work. The author supports her analysis by using sources such as diaries and accounts written by foreign travellers who visited Italy at that time. The travel diary of Gladys Gretton, an Englishwoman who visited the Marche in the mid-nineteenth century, is of particular interest. Her depiction of this area was pitiless: upper-class men, and particularly women, spent their time living in idleness without even nurturing their minds with any kind of reading. Middle-class women, whose extremely limited education could not foster the social improvement of their families, were equally unproductive. The status of women from peasant families was even worse, since even if they strongly supported their families with their work, this was valued less than that of a man, if valued at all.

Data and behaviours within peasant communities nationwide are also analysed by using official statistics as well as various inchieste such as those carried out by Stefano Jacini and Gerolamo Romilli. Although Italy's economy was still predominantly based on agriculture, the country experienced a first wave of industrialisation between 1881 and 1887. As a consequence, women – especially young ones – entered the labour market, but their strong presence was not as valued as that of men. Paid less than men and without any protection, the subaltern status they experienced within their homes was replicated in the workplace.

However, Pescarolo argues that, at the turn of the century, industrialisation and the significant female presence in the job market led to a change in the vision of the female body: instead of being protected from seduction, it became worth protecting from fatigue, in order to fulfil its maternal function. This new view opened the way to the elaboration and the enactment of laws on female labour in the first decade of the twentieth century.

But the male breadwinner model was, and to some extent still is, a constant element of the socio-cultural fabric of the Italian peninsula: indeed, the republic's Costituzione, drawn up in the years immediately after the end of the Second World War, still carried some ambiguities from the past. Despite focussing on equality between men and women, articles such as the 29th and 37th highlight women's specific role within the family. In recent times, Italian reforms such as that of family law (1975) removed those legacies from the past juridical framework, but society still struggles with inequality.

As regards the nineteenth century, the focus of this book is mainly on ‘physical’ work. Although women's role in the cultural industry could have been analysed in more depth throughout the book, its study of the twentieth century is significant and includes a detailed examination of ‘womanly jobs’, as they were perceived at the time, such as nurse and teacher. The use of different kinds of sources helps to build up an interesting picture of women in the labour market; if the primary sources deliver a clear idea of how the people of the time lived and understood their relationship with work and with women's work in particular, the many secondary sources and the significant bibliography included at the end of the volume contextualise the changes and continuities in women's lives.