Life-cycle living standards of intact and disrupted English working families, 1260-1850

Sara Horrell, Jane Humphries and Jacob Weisdorf

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: We provide a framework for considering the living standards among intact and disrupted working-class families of various sizes in historical England. We estimate family incomes without resort to the usual male day wages and ahistorical assumptions about men’s labour inputs, instead using approximations of their annual earnings. We incorporate women and children’s wages and labour inputs and use a family life-cycle approach which accommodates consumption smoothing through saving. The analysis extends to families with often overlooked but historically common structures: widows with their children, deserted wives, and families which include husbands/fathers but ones unable or unwilling to work. Our framework suggests living standards varied considerably over time and by family structure and dependency ratio. Small and intact families enjoyed high and rising living standards after 1700. Large, broken, and disrupted families depended on child labour and poor relief up until 1830.

Keywords: child labour; consumption soothing; costs-of-living; dependency ratio; life cycle; living standards; poor relief; prices; wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 N13 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:106986

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