It is difficult to establish when women first began to work in tin mining.1 Mining on a large scale began as an exclusively male occupation with the import of male Chinese labour in the mid-nineteenth century and since then, various methods of mining have been dominated by male workers. Mining work by Chinese women probably began with family formation and female immigration from the 1900s until World War II. The process of family formation had already begun by the turn of the century when some mine workers returned to China to fetch their wives or sent for them. The immigration of relatively large numbers of females, some of whom went to the mining areas to work or subsequently married mine workers, greatly increased their numbers in mining (Blythe 1938, p. 103). The 1930s particularly saw an influx of women into mining as this was the period of significant immigration of single women into Malaya. Chinese women thus entered mining mainly after the indenture system was abolished in 1914, and included both married women whose husbands were also miners and single women working individually or in groups. A large number of the latter were Hakka and Samsui women associated with the anti-marriage groups in south China.

The number of Chinese women in mining can be inferred from the number of dulang (pan washing) passes issued since this method was used only by women, the overwhelming number of whom were Chinese. First issued by the colonial government in 1907, the number of dulang passes increased from 8,278 in 1909 to 12,867 in 1920 and 11,809 in 1936 (Jackson 1961, p. 146; Siew 1953, p. 406). By 1931, out of a total working population of 89,618 in mining and quarrying, 10,168 or 11.3 per cent were women most of whom were Chinese (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103). By the late 1940s, tin mining had become the third largest source of employment for Chinese women after rubber cultivation and servicing activities, even though the industry remained predominantly a male occupation (Del Tufo 1949, pp. 532-33).