IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4295.html

The End of Destitution

Author

Listed:
  • Gazeley, Ian

    (University of Sussex)

  • Newell, Andrew T.

    (University of Sussex)

Abstract

The paper presents a statistical generalisation, to working families in the whole of Britain, of Rowntree's finding that absolute poverty declined dramatically in York between 1899 and 1936. We use poverty lines devised by contemporary social investigators and two relatively newly-discovered data sets. We estimate an almost complete elimination of absolute poverty among working households for the whole of the Britain between 1904 and 1937. We offer a number of pieces of corroborative evidence that give support to our findings. We decompose the poverty reduction into the effects of two proximate causes, of roughly equal importance, the decline in family size and the rise of real wages. We conclude with some speculation about the deeper causes of the decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Gazeley, Ian & Newell, Andrew T., 2009. "The End of Destitution," IZA Discussion Papers 4295, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4295.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walter Y. Oi & Todd L. Idson, 1999. "Workers Are More Productive in Large Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 104-108, May.
    2. repec:bla:scandj:v:81:y:1979:i:2:p:285-307 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The state & inequality
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-08-04 18:04:43

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Newell & Ian Gazeley, 2012. "The declines in infant mortality and fertility: Evidence from British cities in demographic transition," Working Paper Series 4812, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    2. Gazeley, Ian & Holmes, Rose & Newell, Andrew T. & Reynolds, Kevin & Gutierrez Rufrancos, Hector, 2018. "Inequality among European Working Households, 1890-1960," IZA Discussion Papers 11355, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Hatton, Timothy J. & Martin, Richard M., 2010. "Fertility decline and the heights of children in Britain, 1886-1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 505-519, October.

    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. Hilal Atasoy & Rajiv D. Banker & Paul A. Pavlou, 2016. "On the Longitudinal Effects of IT Use on Firm-Level Employment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 6-26, March.
    2. Ola Bengtsson & John R. M. Hand, 2013. "Employee Compensation in Entrepreneurial Companies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 312-340, June.
    3. Susanne Prantl & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2020. "The Impact of Immigration on Competing Natives' Wages: Evidence from German Reunification," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 79-97, March.
    4. Regev, Tali & Zoabi, Hosny, 2014. "Talent Utilization And Search For The Appropriate Technology," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 863-882, June.
    5. Mr. Sergi Lanau & Petia Topalova, 2016. "The Impact of Product Market Reforms on Firm Productivity in Italy," IMF Working Papers 2016/119, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Binnur Balkan & Semih Tumen, 2016. "Firm-Size Wage Gaps along the Formal-Informal Divide: Theory and Evidence," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 235-266, April.
    7. Andre Lorentz & Tommaso Ciarli & Maria Savona & Marco Valente, 2019. "Structural Transformations and Cumulative Causation: Towards an Evolutionary Micro-foundation of the Kaldorian Growth Model," Working Papers of BETA 2019-15, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    8. Maritza López-Novella & Salimata Sissoko, 2009. "Working Paper 12-09 - Salaires et négociation collective en Belgique : une analyse microéconomique en panel," Working Papers 0912, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    9. Giulio Bottazzi & Marco Grazzi, 2014. "Dynamics Of Productivity And Cost Of Labour In Italian Manufacturing Firms," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(S1), pages 55-73, December.
    10. Myriam Mariani & Marzia Romanelli, 2006. ""Stacking" or "Picking" Patents? The Inventors' Choice Between Quantity and Quality," LEM Papers Series 2006/06, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Jeffrey G. Woods, 2017. "The Effect of Technological Change on the Task Structure of Jobs and the Capital-Labor Trade-Off in US Production," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(2), pages 739-757, June.
    12. André Lorentz & Tommaso Ciarli & Maria Savona & Marco Valente, 2016. "The effect of demand-driven structural transformations on growth and technological change," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 219-246, March.
    13. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2005. "A simple model of firm heterogeneity, international trade, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-20, January.
    14. Richard K. Johanson & Arvil V. Adams, 2004. "Skills Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15028, April.
    15. de Rassenfosse, Gaetan & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2009. "A policy insight into the R&D-patent relationship," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 779-792, June.
    16. ArnabK. Basu & NancyH. Chau & Ravi Kanbur, 2010. "Turning a Blind Eye: Costly Enforcement, Credible Commitment and Minimum Wage Laws," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 244-269, March.
    17. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2007. "The establishment-size wage premium: evidence from European countries," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(5), pages 427-451, December.
    18. Francisco Alcalá & Pedro Hernández, 2010. "Firms’ main market, human capital, and wages," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 433-458, September.
    19. Maria Pereira & Filipe Coelho, 2013. "Work Hours and Well Being: An Investigation of Moderator Effects," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(1), pages 235-253, March.
    20. Bernd Görzig & Martin Gornig & Axel Werwatz, 2004. "East Germany's Wage Gap: A Non-Parametric Decomposition Based on Establishment Characteristics," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 451, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    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:iza:izadps:dp4295. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    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.