Rural labouring classes in 19th century Sweden: Composition and standard of living

This paper presents estimates of the living standards among rural workers in five parishes in southern Sweden from 1800s to 1910s, based on circa 1,500 probate inventories, complemented by a serie of real wages of agricultural day labourers in the county of Kronoberg. The study analyses the standard of living for different categories of rural labourers (with a particular focus on unskilled respectively skilled workers) related to the agrarian reforms and particularily to the industrial breakthrough in late 19th century and how variations in labour supply and demand might have affected wages and material standard. Wages and wealth levels were stagnating during the first half of the 19th century. In normal harvest years unskilled casual workers probably could earn enough to provide for their living, although the margins for harvest failures were scarce. The rapid population growth and the agricultural reforms did most likely affect wage levels and the economic conditions. In the 1870s the economic situation for workers in the study area started to improve rapidly. We can also notice a significant improvement with regard to financial assets. The extensive out-migration to the US from the study area and the industrial breakthrough were probably major factors for pushing labourers wages up. According to Gini-estimates wealth inequality culminated in the 1830s and then went down to a minimum level in early 20th century, contrary to the findings from studies on national level and what would be expected from the Kuznet’s curve theory, claiming that the economic take-off during early industrialisation initially should be be accompanied by rising inequality. A rapid overflow of labourers from the low-income agricultural sector to the expanding higher-income industrial or self-employed artisan sector contributed to a general improvement of earnings and the diminishing inequality rate. The local design of the study in combination with a relatively large dataset allows for more detailed analyses and controlling for more variables than is usually possible in studies on a higher geographical level. The local approach, taking into account specific contextual factors, could help to reveal relevant mechanisms affecting the development and distribution of wealth that might be hidden in studies based on aggregate data on national level not considering regional variations.