Women clerks in transition after World War I in the Kingdom of Italy and Yugoslavia: two case studies from Trieste and Ljubljana

Cergol Paradiž, Ana (author), Perissinotto, Matteo (author), Selišnik, Irena (author)

The aim of this chapter is to compare how female civil servants were integrated into public administration offices in Ljubljana and Trieste (and more broadly, Slovenia and Venezia Giulia) after the First World War, highlighting both similarities and differences. The chapter commences by examining the status of women clerks in both regions before the First World War. It then delves into the distinctions between female civil servants and their male counterparts in general. Similar trends observed in other European countries after the First World War can also be seen in these regions. This includes a surge in female employment followed by job redundancies linked to state restructuring, economic crises, and the replacement of female workers with veterans. In the final part, we analyze the differences among female servants, shedding light on their recruitment practices, which remained rooted in Habsburg tradition, prioritizing moral integrity and political loyalty. There was, however, a divergence in the treatment of married female civil servants, with Italy dismissing them while Yugoslavia did not. By centering our study on female personnel, we offer a distinct perspective on the cultural changes that unfolded after WWI, particularly with regard to the evolving roles of women in both society and the workforce.

• Language: English
• Keywords: interwar period, women's work, civil servants, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Kingdom of Italy, women's history
• Typology: 1.16 - Independent Scientific Component Part or a Chapter in a Monograph
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 81-104
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-170319
• UDC: 94(4)"19"
• DOI: 10.5117/9789633867518
• COBISS.SI-ID: 232799235

Copyright

Licenca Creative Commons je navedena v kolofonu publikacije (glej izvorni URL). (Datum opombe 3. 7. 2025)

• Publication date in RUL: 03.07.2025

Record is a part of a monograph

• Title: Women and work in the North-Eastern Adriatic : postwar transitions
• Editors: Marta Verginella, Urška Strle
• Place of publishing: Budapest
• Publisher: CEU Press, Central European University Press
• ISBN: 978-963-386-751-8
• COBISS.SI-ID: 232405763
• Collection title: Work and labor - transdisciplinary studies for the 21st century
• Collection numbering: ǂvol. ǂ5
• Collection ISSN: 2732-1118

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: medvojno obdobje, žensko delo, javne uslužbenke, Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Kraljevina Italija, ženska zgodovina

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 742683
• Name: Post-war trasistions in gendered perspective: the case of the North-Eastern Adricatic Region
• Acronym: EIRENE

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J6-50190-2023
• Name: Zgodovina ženskega dela v 19. in 20. stoletju na Slovenskem