IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v99y2026ics0014498325000798.html

Living standards in Angola, 1760–197511This work is an output from the project “Measuring the Great Divergence: A study of global standards of living, 1500–1950″, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/W001578/1). We thank Robert C. Allen, Gareth Austin, Stephen Broadberry, Rui Pedro Esteves, Bronwen Everill, James Fenske, Leigh Gardner, Michiel de Haas, Anthony G. Hopkins, Klas Rönnbäck, Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, William G. Clarence-Smith, Jelmer Vos, Rebecca Simson, Marlous van Waijenburg, Jacob Weisdorf, and speakers at several talks for comments. Leticia Arroyo Abad and Eric Schneider kindly shared data. Mariana Martins Cardoso provided research assistance. We are grateful to the Penha Foundation for financial support

Author

Listed:
  • Carvalhal, Hélder
  • Palma, Nuno

Abstract

We investigate the well-being of urban workers in Angola under colonialism. Using a newly compiled dataset derived from archival and secondary sources, we construct welfare ratios for both skilled and unskilled workers in the cities of Luanda and Benguela from 1760 to 1975. Our findings indicate that Angolan workers experienced lower economic prosperity compared to their counterparts in other parts of the world. Living standards declined during the 19th century, followed by a recovery emerging in the 20th century — particularly from the mid-1960s.

Suggested Citation

  • Carvalhal, Hélder & Palma, Nuno, 2026. "Living standards in Angola, 1760–197511This work is an output from the project “Measuring the Great Divergence: A study of global standards of living, 1500–1950″, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/W001578/1). We t," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:99:y:2026:i:c:s0014498325000798
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498325000798
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101732?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cermeño, Alexandra L. & Palma, Nuno & Pistola, Renato, 2023. "Stunting and wasting in a growing economy: biological living standards in Portugal during the twentieth century," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    2. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2011. "Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2003-2041, August.
    3. Robert C. Allen, 2015. "The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 1-22, February.
    4. Allen, Robert C. & Murphy, Tommy E. & Schneider, Eric B., 2012. "The Colonial Origins of the Divergence in the Americas: A Labor Market Approach," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 863-894, December.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    6. Gardner, Leigh, 2023. "Slavery, Coercion, and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 199-223, June.
    7. Luciano Amaral, 2019. "The Modern Portuguese Economy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-3-030-24548-1.
    8. Leo Dolan, 2025. "Living standards and forced labour: A comparative study of colonial Africa, 1918–74," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1039-1067, November.
    9. Jane Humphries & Jacob Weisdorf, 2019. "Unreal Wages? Real Income and Economic Growth in England, 1260–1850," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2867-2887.
    10. Palma, Nuno & Reis, Jaime, 2021. "Can autocracy promote literacy? Evidence from a cultural alignment success story," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 412-436.
    11. Lambais, Guilherme & Palma, Nuno, 2023. "African Slavery and the Reckoning of Brazil," CEPR Discussion Papers 18716, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    12. Robert C. Allen & Jean-Pascal Bassino & Debin Ma & Christine Moll-Murata & Jan Luiten Van Zanden, 2011. "Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64, pages 8-38, February.
    13. Robert C. Allen, 2020. "Poverty and the Labor Market: Today and Yesterday," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 107-134, August.
    14. Arroyo Abad, Leticia & Davies, Elwyn & van Zanden, Jan Luiten, 2012. "Between conquest and independence: Real wages and demographic change in Spanish America, 1530–1820," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 149-166.
    15. repec:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:10:p:2867-2887. is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Lains, Pedro, 1998. "An Account of the Portuguese African Empire, 1885–1975," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 235-263, March.
    17. Frankema, Ewout & Waijenburg, Marlous Van, 2012. "Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 895-926, December.
    18. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2022. "Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1885–2008: Evidence from eight countries," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Pim De Zwart & Jan Luiten Van Zanden, 2015. "Editor's choice Labor, wages, and living standards in Java, 1680–1914," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 19(3), pages 215-234.
    20. Gareth Austin & Stephen Broadberry, 2014. "Introduction: The renaissance of African economic history," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 893-906, November.
    21. Suresh Naidu & Noam Yuchtman, 2013. "Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in Nineteenth Century Industrial Britain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 107-144, February.
    22. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2021. "Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    23. Allen, Robert C., 2001. "The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 411-447, October.
    24. Juif, Dácil & Frankema, Ewout, 2018. "From coercion to compensation: institutional responses to labour scarcity in the Central African Copperbelt," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 313-343, April.
    25. Pim de Zwart & Jan Lucassen, 2020. "Poverty or prosperity in northern India? New evidence on real wages, 1590s–1870s," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 644-667, August.
    26. Sam Jones & Peter Gibbon, 2025. "Firm profitability and forced wage labour in Portuguese Africa: Evidence from the Sena Sugar Estates, 1920–74," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 78(1), pages 30-61, February.
    27. de Zwart, Pim & Gallardo-Albarrán, Daniel & Rijpma, Auke, 2022. "The Demographic Effects of Colonialism: Forced Labor and Mortality in Java, 1834–1879," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 211-249, March.
    28. van Waijenburg, Marlous, 2018. "Financing the African Colonial State: The Revenue Imperative and Forced Labor," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 40-80, March.
    29. Palma, Nuno & Reis, Jaime, 2019. "From Convergence to Divergence: Portuguese Economic Growth, 1527–1850," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 477-506, June.
    30. Obie Porteous, 2022. "Research Deserts and Oases: Evidence from 27 Thousand Economics Journal Articles on Africa," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(6), pages 1235-1258, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moatsos, Michail & de Zwart, Pim, 2025. "Real wages around the world: Insights from linear programming and accounting for climate differences," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Sullivan, Dylan & Hickel, Jason, 2023. "Capitalism and extreme poverty: a global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117731, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ernesto López Losa & Santiago Piquero Zarauz, 2016. "Spanish real wages in the Northern-Western European mirror, 1500-1800. On the timings and magnitude of the Little Divergence in Europe," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1607, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    4. Robert C. Allen, 2019. "Real wages once more: a response to Judy Stephenson," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(2), pages 738-754, May.
    5. Corinne Boter, 2020. "Living standards and the life cycle: reconstructing household income and consumption in the early twentieth‐century Netherlands," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1050-1073, November.
    6. Pim de Zwart & Jan Lucassen, 2020. "Poverty or prosperity in northern India? New evidence on real wages, 1590s–1870s," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 644-667, August.
    7. Allen, Robert C., 2014. "American Exceptionalism as a Problem in Global History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 309-350, June.
    8. Paul Caruana-Galizia, 2015. "Strategic colonies and economic development: real wages in Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Malta, 1836–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(4), pages 1250-1276, November.
    9. Ewout Frankema & Marlous van Waijenburg, 2023. "What about the race between education and technology in the Global South? Comparing skill premiums in colonial Africa and Asia," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(3), pages 941-978, August.
    10. Robert C. Allen, 2021. "The Interplay among Wages, Technology, and Globalization: The Labour Market and Inequality, 1620-2020," Working Papers 20210065, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jun 2021.
    11. Klas Rönnbäck, 2014. "Living standards on the pre-colonial Gold Coast: a quantitative estimate of African laborers’ welfare ratios," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 18(2), pages 185-202.
    12. Sara Horrell, 2023. "Household consumption patterns and the consumer price index, England, 1260–1869," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1023-1050, November.
    13. Mario García-Zúñiga & Ernesto López-Losa, 2019. "Building Workers in Madrid (1737-1805). New Wage Series and Working Lives," Working Papers 0152, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    14. Yuzuru Kumon, 2020. "The Labor Intensive Path: Wages, Incomes and the Work Year in Japan, 1610-1932," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1154, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    15. Boško Mijatović & Branko Milanović, 2021. "The real urban wage in an agricultural economy without landless farmers: Serbia, 1862–1910," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(2), pages 424-448, May.
    16. Laura Panza & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2017. "Australian Exceptionalism? Inequality and Living Standards 1821-1871," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2027, The University of Melbourne.
    17. Jane Humphries & Jacob Weisdorf, 2019. "Unreal Wages? Real Income and Economic Growth in England, 1260–1850," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2867-2887.
    18. Andrés Calderón-Fernández & Héctor García-Montero & Enrique Llopis-Agelán, 2017. "New research guidelines for living standards, consumer baskets, and prices in Madrid and Mexico," Working Papers 097, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    19. Leonardo Ridolfi, 2017. "Six centuries of real wages in France from Louis IX to Napoleon III: 1250-1860," LEM Papers Series 2017/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Trevor Burnard & Laura Panza & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2017. "The Social Implications of Sugar: Living Costs, Real Incomes and Inequality in Jamaica c1774," NBER Working Papers 23897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania
    • N97 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Africa; Oceania

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:99:y:2026:i:c:s0014498325000798. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.