Respectable standards of living: the alternative lens of maintenance costs, Britain 1270-1860

This paper argues that in all societies there is considerable agreement about the goods and services needed to provide a respectable standard of living and that this can be measured by what it cost to maintain people of good standing. Such a measure allows for the inclusion of two neglected components of living costs: first, changes in the composition and quality of consumption, as opposed to concentrating on the price of a fixed consumption basket; and second, the value of the household services required to turn commodities into livings. More than 4400 observations, drawn mainly from diverse primary sources, trace levels and trends in maintenance costs for Britain, 1270-1860. These can be compared with conventional cost of living indicators to offer a complementary perspective that accommodates aspirational consumption and the input of household labour. The struggle to support families at respectable standards emerges as driving industriousness and motivating prudence among a class that played a major role in economic development. More speculatively, estimates of the time necessary to turn material goods into livings is then combined with evidence on women’s wages to evaluate the contribution of unpaid domestic labour to total income

Girls and their families in an era of economic change

The paper uses autobiographical accounts by 227 working women alongside a larger sample of men's life stories to compare girls’ and boys’ experiences of first jobs, schooling and family life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It asks whether girls were disadvantaged in seizing the opportunities and fending off the threats to wellbeing occasioned by economic change. Girls were more likely than boys to experience sexual harassment and this constrained the ways in which they could earn a living and live their lives. Fathers as breadwinners merited respect and often affection, but it was mothers with whom girls identified

Careworn: the economic history of caring labor

Economists ignore caring labor since most is provided unpaid. Disregard is unjust, theoretically indefensible, and probably misleading. Valuation requires estimates of time spent and the replacement or opportunity costs of that time. I use the maintenance costs of British workers, costs which cover both the material inputs into upkeep and the domestic services needed to turn commodities into livings, to isolate the costs of paid domestic labor. I then impute the value of unpaid domestic labor from these market equivalents, and aggregate across households without domestic servants. Historically, unpaid domestic labor represented c. 20 percent of total income, a contribution that suggests the need to revise some standard narratives

Gender equality, growth, and how a technological trap destroyed female work

Development economists have long studied the relationship between gender equality and economic growth. More recently, economic historians have taken an overdue interest. We sketch the pathways within the development literature that have been hypothesized as linking equality for women to rising incomes, and the reverse channels–from higher incomes to equality. We describe how the European Marriage Pattern literature applies these mechanisms, and we highlight problems with the claimed link between equality and growth. We then explain how a crucial example of technological unemployment for women–the destruction of hand spinning during the British Industrial Revolution–contributed to the emergence of the male breadwinner family. We show how this family structure created household relationships that play into the development pathways, and outline its persistent effects into the twenty-first century

Unreal wages? Real income and economic growth in England, 1260-1850

Estimates of historical workers' annual incomes suffer from the fundamental problem that they are inferred from day wage rates without knowing how many days of work day-labourers undertook per year. We circumvent the problem by building an income series based on the payments made to workers employed by the year rather than by the day. Our data suggest that earlier annual income estimates based on day wages overestimate medieval labour incomes but underestimate labour incomes during the Industrial Revolution. Our revised estimates indicate that modern economic growth began more than two centuries earlier than commonly thought and was driven by an 'Industrious Revolution'. They also suggest that the current global downturn in labour's share is not exceptional but fits within the range of historical fluctuations

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

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

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

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

Oklahoma Family Child Care Home Providers: Best Practices and Professionalism

Occupational and Adult Educatio

Losing the thread: a response to Robert Allen dagger: a response to Robert Allen

In an earlier article we used archival and printed primary sources to construct the first long-run wage series for hand spinning in early modern Britain. This evidence challenged Robert Allen's claim that spinners were part of the ‘high wage economy’, which he sees as motivating invention, innovation, and mechanization in the spinning section of the textile industry. We respond to Allen's subsequent criticism of our argument, sources, and methods, and his presentation of alternative evidence. Allen contends that we have understated both the earnings and associated productivity of hand spinners by focusing on part-time and low-quality workers. His rejoinder rests on an ahistorical account of spinners’ work and similarly weak evidence on wages as did his initial claims. Our augmented version of the spinners’ wages dataset confirms our original findings. Spinners’ wages were low even compared with other women workers, and neither wages nor the piece rates that determined unit labour costs followed a trajectory that could explain the invention and spread of the spinning jenny

Insights into the complexity of presentation and management of patients: The sport and exercise physician’s perspective

Objectives: Sport and Exercise Physicians represent a relatively new specialty focusing on exercise in complex diseases including musculoskeletal diseases. Our objective was to describe the characteristics, type and complexity of patient presentations, their management strategies and referral information in Australian practice. Methods: A cross-sectional study including a cohort of 11 senior Sport and Exercise Physicians in Australia studied all new patient consultations within an 8-week period. Data were analysed relating to presentation, referral source, follow-up referrals, and patient management strategies. Results: Data from 419 patients were recorded. The majority, 97% (n=406), had musculoskeletal conditions, 53% (n=222) had one or more associated comorbidities and 47% (n=195) had ongoing symptoms for \u3e 12 months. Most patients, 82% (n=355), were referred by general practitioners. Prior consultations included physiotherapy 72% (n=301) and orthopaedic 20% (n=85). A multidisciplinary network of referrals from Sport and Exercise Physicians was observed, including 210 referrals to 9 allied health specialities and 61 referrals to 17 medical specialities. Over 74% (n=311) of patients received exercise-based intervention as part of the treatment plan, including 57% (n=240) physician managed exercise interventions. Conclusion: Our work shines a light on the nature and complexity of the role of Sport and Exercise Physicians in an Australian practice context. Findings will assist in implementing measures to promote patient care at the community level in managing musculoskeletal conditions. Sport and exercise medicine stakeholders and government policy makers can use this information in developing appropriate programmes to support patients and create integrated sport and exercise medicine services for the community