The pay of labourers and unskilled men on London building sites, 1660 – 1770

Judy Stephenson

No 24, Working Papers from Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Cambridge

Abstract: This paper presents evidence of pay to workers at the lower end of the building trades in long eighteenth century London. Traditionally, the pay of labourers has been recorded as a proxy for unskilled workers. In fact, the labourers whose charge-out rates have been recorded were mostly semi-skilled. There were many who earned far less than ‘labourers’ by day rate or by other means. Using the records of large London construction projects over the long term I propose a new taxonomy, and provide a new working wage series for both semi-skilled labourers and unskilled men for London for the eighteenth century.

Keywords: Wages; Building trades; Skill; Eighteenth-century England (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 N33 N93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8,969 words
Date: 2016-03-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Cambridge Working Paper in Economic & Social History, No. 24

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cmh:wpaper:24

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