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Wed 12 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
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Thu 13 April
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    14.00 - 16.00
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Fri 14 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
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Sat 15 April
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Thursday 13 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
D-6 ECO06 Technology, Work, and Wellbeing
B22
Network: Economic History Chair: Alexandra de Pleijt
Organizer: Benjamin Schneider Discussant: Alexandra de Pleijt
Benjamin Schneider : The Race Between Productivity and Job Quality: British and American Cotton Spinning, 1830–1910
This paper analyzes work-related wellbeing after the adoption of mechanized textile production in Britain and the United States and demonstrates that job quality was in a race against increasing productivity. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence from archival sources and the first index to quantify ‘good jobs’ in the past (Schneider ... (Show more)
This paper analyzes work-related wellbeing after the adoption of mechanized textile production in Britain and the United States and demonstrates that job quality was in a race against increasing productivity. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence from archival sources and the first index to quantify ‘good jobs’ in the past (Schneider 2022), the paper shows that cotton spinning firms’ search for higher output-per-worker after the introduction of self-acting mules and ring spinning led them to increase work intensity and machinery-per-worker. Improved technology could have permitted reduced workloads or higher output with constant effort, but fierce competition led managers to demand greater work intensity. In the United States, spindles per operative rose from around 40 in 1820 to more than 300 by 1910, while spindle speeds increased from under 5000 rpm to over 10,000 rpm. In Britain, increases in machinery-per-worker and speeds were compounded by cost-cutting in the purchase of raw cotton, which demanded more labor effort to maintain consistent output. In the late 19th century, regulation-enforced reductions in working hours offset rising effort demands and work-related wellbeing rose. Finally, the paper uses this example to discuss the relationship between capital-per-worker and unmeasured labor effort, and its implications for historical growth accounting. (Show less)

Guy Solomon, Joshua Rhodes : Work, Occupational Change, and Technological Adoption: Britain, 1851–1911
This paper analyses the influence of technological innovation on work and employment in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to early-twentieth century. Locating the adoption of new technologies within broader trends of socio-economic, occupational, and demographic change (primarily derived from census data), the paper re-integrates the lives of everyday people into ... (Show more)
This paper analyses the influence of technological innovation on work and employment in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to early-twentieth century. Locating the adoption of new technologies within broader trends of socio-economic, occupational, and demographic change (primarily derived from census data), the paper re-integrates the lives of everyday people into existing broader narratives of the Industrial Revolution. In doing so, it evaluates the social costs of British industrialisation in new ways.

By adapting computational methods and techniques from computer science, the paper successfully combines analysis at multiple spatial scales—namely individual, household, street, and parish—to demonstrate how such an approach can utilise the wealth of information provided by individual characteristics and place-specific attributes, whilst simultaneously working across multiple localities. Examining geographic areas associated with economic modernisation (e.g. communications, steel manufacturing), the paper presents an integrated analysis of: a) changes in the relative socio-economic status of those employed in mechanising and emerging industries; b) the spatial distribution of workers, and how far this can be associated with the requirements of new technologies; and c) the evolving demographic characteristics of individuals and household units engaged with these economic activities. (Show less)

Hillary Vipond : Technological Change and Labour Displacement in Historical Perspective
Despite extensive occupational data available from digitised census records, there is no quantitative record of the number of employment opportunities created or lost as industries mechanized in Great Britain between 1851–1911. This is primarily because census data tracks occupations only at the industry level, which obscures important shifts in the ... (Show more)
Despite extensive occupational data available from digitised census records, there is no quantitative record of the number of employment opportunities created or lost as industries mechanized in Great Britain between 1851–1911. This is primarily because census data tracks occupations only at the industry level, which obscures important shifts in the occupational structure taking place at the sub-industry ‘task’ level. I create a new, more finely grained occupational categorization structure, using text recorded in workers’ descriptions of their occupations in the census. This illuminates the impact of mechanization on individual occupations and workers. In this paper I link 1.29 million English bootmakers (97.2%) to the sub-industry level ‘tasks’ they performed. This reveals that occupational decline took place as the industry mechanized, with 145,248 jobs lost as skills, such as boot binding, became obsolete. But, another 152,235 jobs, demanding new skills, were generated. Importantly, incumbents in the bootmaking industry were not able to transition out of declining occupations into the newly generated ones. Instead, the new jobs within the industry went to newly trained young bootmakers, effecting an important step-change in the socio-demographic profile of workers in this industry. (Show less)



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