Working for a Living? Women and Children’s Labour Inputs in England, 1260-1850

Jacob Weisdorf, Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries

No 14651, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We consider the living standards, supplies of child-labour, and poor-relief needs among intact and broken working-class families of various sizes in historical England. We estimate family incomes without resort to the usual day wages and ahistorical assumptions about male labour inputs. We also incorporate women and children’s wages and labour alongside consumption smoothing using a life-cycle approach. 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 and broken families depended on child labour and poor relief up until 1830.

Keywords: Child labour; Consumption smoothing; 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)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-his and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14651 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Working for a Living? Women and Children’s Labour Inputs in England, 1260-1850 (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14651

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14651

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().