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Title: The Family as the Origin of the Industrial Revolution in England

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: We extend and test on long time series evidence for England the contention by ForemanPeck (2011) that the West European Marriage Pattern (Hajnal, 1965) was an essential reason for precocious Western European economic development. Persistent high mortality and powerful mortality shocks in the 14 th and 15 th c enturies lowered life expectations (Hatcher, 1986 Bailey, 1996). Subsequently increased life expectancy reduced the number of births necessary to achieve a given family size. Higher incomes (through the reduced population working on given agricultural land) raised target numbers of children but did not completely offset the need for fewer births. Fewer births were accompanied by a higher age at first marriage of females. Later marriage not only constrained population growth but also provided greater opportunities for female informal learning. In a period when the family was the principal institution for socialising future workers (schooling was not compulsory until 1880 in England), such learning was a significant contributor to the intergenerational transmission and accumulation of human capital. Our paper shows how, over the centuries, the gradual induced rise of human capital raised productivity and eventually brought about the Industrial Revolution. Without the contribution of late marriage to human capital accumulation broadly interpreted, historical real wage growth in England would have been more than halved.

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Authors: Foreman-Peck, James; Zhou, Peng

Publisher: Cardiff University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Other

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