By defining ‘worker’ to include low-paid white-collar as well as blue-collar staff, and taking a broad definition of industry, this article reveals whereas factory managers increasingly hired blue-collar women during roughly 1895–1914, the situation with women's employment in the railway industry was very different. Railway policy was to restrict numbers tightly and prioritise literate women in certain low-paid mostly white-collar jobs for which men were hard to recruit. Railway policy-makers were influenced by not just enduring patriarchal attitudes, but also military demands together with financial concerns associated with pension rights and retrospective wage increases. At the same time, local labour shortages increasingly forced managers to seek exemptions to the hiring policy or even ignore the restrictions, especially in regions like Central Asia where qualified people of both genders were relatively scarce. The article concludes with some general questions. How typical by that time were the MPS as an employing ministry and state-owned railways as industrial employers? Did hiring policy in state-owned industrial enterprises differ significantly from the private industrial sector? What ishould be understood by the term ‘skilled worker’? And how important are white-collar workers as a category for analysing women's employment in late Tsarist Russia’s industrial economy?

通过将“工人”定义为包括低薪白领和蓝领员工，并采用广义的行业定义，本文揭示了大约在 1895 年至 1914 年期间工厂经理越来越多地雇用蓝领女性的情况铁路行业的妇女就业情况大不相同。铁路政策是严格限制人数，并在某些男性难以招聘的低薪主要白领工作中优先考虑有文化的女性。铁路政策制定者不仅受到持久的重男轻女态度的影响，还受到军事需求以及与养老金权利和追溯性工资增长相关的财务问题的影响。与此同时，当地劳动力短缺日益迫使管理人员寻求招聘政策的豁免，甚至无视限制，尤其是在像中亚这样的地区，男女合格的人才相对稀缺。文章以一些一般性问题结束。到那时，公安部作为雇佣部门和国有铁路作为工业雇主的典型性如何？国有工业企业的招聘政策与私营工业部门有很大不同吗？应如何理解“技术工人”一词？白领工人作为分析沙皇俄国晚期工业经济中女性就业的一个类别有多重要？到那时，公安部作为雇佣部门和国有铁路作为工业雇主的典型性如何？国有工业企业的招聘政策与私营工业部门有很大不同吗？应如何理解“技术工人”一词？白领工人作为分析沙皇俄国晚期工业经济中女性就业的一个类别有多重要？到那时，公安部作为雇佣部门和国有铁路作为工业雇主的典型性如何？国有工业企业的招聘政策与私营工业部门有很大不同吗？应如何理解“技术工人”一词？白领工人作为分析沙皇俄国晚期工业经济中女性就业的一个类别有多重要？