Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution

1998/09/01 by Charles H. Feinstein · 7 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · Health Professions · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Employment and Welfare Studies

paper · doi:10.1017/s0022050700021100

openalex publication_date 1998/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/11

Abstract

New estimates of nominal earnings and the cost of living are presented and used to make a fresh assessment of changes in the real earnings of male and female manual workers in Britain from 1770 to 1870. Workers' average real earnings are then adjusted for factors such as unemployment, the number of their dependants, and the costs of urbanization. The main finding is that the standard of living of the average working-class family improved by less than 15 percent between the 1780s and 1850s. This long plateau is shown to be consistent with other economic, political, and demographic indicators.

Citations

• Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour
• Urbanization, Mortality, and the Standard of Living Debate: New Estimates of the Expectation of Life at Birth in Nineteenth‐century British Cities

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• Industrial Revolution [wikipedia]
• Western culture [wikipedia]