English Workers' Living Standards during the Industrial Revolution: A New Look

This paper adds new evidence to the standard of living debate. New wage data and new employment weights make it possible to assess nominal earnings growth from 1755 to 1851 for various labouring classes: farm labourers, unskilled urban, skilled urban, white collar, average blue collar, and the avera...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Economic history review Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 1 - 25
Main Authors Lindert, Peter H., Williamson, Jeffrey G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Welwyn Garden City Titus Wilson and Son Ltd 01.02.1983
Popper and Co
Subjects
British Industrial Revolution
Children
Industrial agriculture
Mortality
Real wages
Standard of living
Surveys and Speculations
Unemployment
Wage rate
Wages
Workforce
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Summary:This paper adds new evidence to the standard of living debate. New wage data and new employment weights make it possible to assess nominal earnings growth from 1755 to 1851 for various labouring classes: farm labourers, unskilled urban, skilled urban, white collar, average blue collar, and the average worker. New cost of living data (augmented by rents) make it possible to assess real earnings growth. The pessimists' position is rejected, although the more skilled enjoyed the greater improvement. The paper then expands the assessment to include issues of unemployment, occupational mobility, regional migration, longevity, and the quality of life. These extensions fail to support the pessimists' position. We conclude that the time has come to shift attention to inequality issues, as well as to the counterfactual question "could Britain have done better"?
ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.2307/2598895