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Beyond the male breadwinner: life-cycle living standards of intact and disrupted English working families, 1260-1850

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  • Horrell, Sara
  • Humphries, Jane
  • Weisdorf, Jacob
Abstract
This article provides a novel framework within which to evaluate real household incomes of predominantly rural working families of various sizes and structures in England in the years 1260–1850. We reject ahistorical assumptions about complete reliance on men's wages and male breadwinning, moving closer to reality by including women and children's contributions to family incomes. Our empirical strategy benefits from recent estimates of men's annual earnings, so avoiding the need to gross up day rates using problematic assumptions about days worked, and from new data on women and children's wages and labour inputs. A family life-cycle approach which accommodates consumption smoothing through saving adds further breadth and realism. Moreover, the analysis embraces two historically common but often overlooked family types alternative to the traditional male-breadwinner model: one where the husband is missing having died or deserted, and one where the husband is present but unwilling or unable to find work. Our framework suggests living standards varied widely by family structure and dependency ratio. Incorporating detailed demographic data available for 1560 onward suggests that small and intact families enjoyed high and rising living standards after 1700, while large or disrupted families depended on child labour and poor relief until c. 1830. A broader perspective on family structures informs understanding of the chronology and nature of poverty and coping strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Horrell, Sara & Humphries, Jane & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2022. "Beyond the male breadwinner: life-cycle living standards of intact and disrupted English working families, 1260-1850," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110503, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:110503
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110503/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Luis Felipe Zegarra, 2024. "Wages, prices and living standards in Spanish America: evidence from Lima," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 18(3), pages 837-867, September.
    3. Benjamin Schneider, 2023. "Technological unemployment in the British industrial revolution: the destruction of hand spinning," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _207, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Claridge, Jordan & Delabastita, Vincent & Gibbs, Spike, 2024. "(In-kind) wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages: it’s not (all) about the money," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125597, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
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    6. Duan, Rui, 2024. "Greater land size but also inequality? English parliamentary enclosure and the gender pay gap in agriculture 1750-1850," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125860, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Youssouf Merouani & Faustine Perrin, 2022. "Gender and the long-run development process. A survey of the literature [Rethinking age heaping: A cautionary tale from nineteenth-century Italy]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(4), pages 612-641.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    child labour; consumption smoothing; costs-of-living; dependency ratio; life cycle; living standards; male breadwinner families; poor relief; prices; wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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