George R. Boyer

Malthus Was Right After All: Poor Relief and Birth Rates in Southeastern England

The payment of child allowances to laborers with large families was widespread in early nineteenth-century England. This paper tests Thomas Malthuss hypothesis that child allowances caused the birth rate to increase. A cross-sectional regression model is estimated to explain variations in birth rates across parishes in 1826-30. Birth rates are found to be related to child allowances, income, and the availability of housing, as Malthus contended. The paper concludes by examining the role played by the adoption of child allowances after 1795 in the fertility increase of the early nineteenth century.

New Estimates of British Unemployment, 1870-1913

Existing estimates of the annual unemployment rate from 1870 to 1913 were constructed by the Board of Trade, initially in 1888, and updated thereafter. This is still the series which is widely used and cited. It is based on records of the number unemployed in various trade unions and it has a number of well known flaws. The index is weighted by membership of reporting unions and is heavily skewed towards engineering and the metal trades. Some important sectors are largely omitted. We reconstruct sectoral unemployment rates based on union records and supplement this with (crude) estimates for certain other sectors based on proxies for employment. These are weighted according to labour force shares but the index still excludes agriculture and services. The basic cyclical pattern is preserved but the new series has a higher mean and a lower standard deviation than the Board of Trade index. The wide swings in unemployment during the 1870s are confirmed but the amplitude of fluctuations in the 1880s and 1890s is smaller in the new index than in the old. More tentatively, unemployment increases over time in the new index relative to the old.

Labour Migration in Southern and Eastern England, 1861-1901

This paper examines the determinants of migration from 19 southern counties to six major destinations in England and Wales from 1861–70 to 1891–1900. I find that, while the size of origin-destination wage gaps and the distance between origin and destination areas were important determinants of migration flows, as expected, migration was also strongly influenced by the number of previous migrants from an origin county living in a destination. The assistance provided by previous migrants to friends and relatives contemplating migration led to a perpetuation of earlier migration patterns, and helps to explain the continued dominance of London as a destination for migrants in the 1890s.

What Did Unions Do in Nineteenth-Century Britain?

The article examines the development of the insurance function of trade unions. It analyzes how such policies worked, and why union benefit packages differed across occupations. It also addresses the impact of insurance policies on union organization. Insurance benefits increased the ability of unions to attract and retain members. They did not, however, significantly increase the power of union leaders relative to employers or union rank and file.

The Union Wage Effect in Late Nineteenth Century Britain

This paper gives a historical dimension to the impact of trade unions on earnings by estimating the union wage effect in Britain between 1889-90 using data from the US Commissioner of Labour survey conducted at that time. The determinants of union status are also investigated in terms of profit estimation using individual characteristics which may be correlated with union membership. The results of this first stage are used in the computation of selectivity-corrected estimates of the union wage effect. It is found that the effect of union membership on earnings at this time was in the order of 15-20% for a range of different skill levels.

The Evolution of Unemployment Relief in Great Britain

The history of unemployment relief in Britain from 1834 to 1911 was not a unilinear progression in collective benevolence, culminating in unemployment insurance. The combination of poor relief and private charity to assist cyclically unemployed workers from 1834 to 1870 was more generous, and more certain, than the relief provided for the unemployed under the various policies adopted from 1870 to 1911. A major shift in policy occurred in the 1870s, largely in response to the crisis of the Poor Law in the 1860s. Because the new policya combination of self-help and charityproved unable to cope with the high unemployment of cyclical downturns, Parliament in 1911 bowed to political pressure for a national system of relief by adopting the worlds first compulsory system of unemployment insurance.

Unemployment and the UK labour market before, during and after the Golden Age

During the ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 1960s unemployment in Britain averaged 2 per cent. This was far lower than ever before or since and a number of hypotheses have been put forward to account for this unique period in labour market history. But there has been little attempt to isolate precisely how the determinants of wage setting and unemployment differed before, during and after the golden age. We estimate a two-equation model over the whole period from 1872 to 1999 using a newly constructed set of long-run labour market data. We find that the structure of real wage setting was different in the golden age, consistent with notions about the postwar consensus, but it did not result in wages that were significantly lower relative to productivity than during other eras. Rapid growth in productivity and world trade together with low interest rates did keep unemployment lower during the golden age than after the 1970s. But the key difference between the golden age and the periods before and after was shifts in labour demand that are not accounted for by any of the variables that are usually thought to determine the equilibrium unemployment rate.

The Trade Boards Act of 1909 and the Alleviation of Household Poverty

This article examines the effects of the 1909 Trade Boards Act on womens wage rates and income contributions to poor households. The Act established boards charged with setting minimum hourly wages in selected low-paid trades, and the majority of workers affected before the First World War were women. Many of the women whose wages were raised by the Act were the wives and daughters of low-skilled workers, while many others were sole earners who supported children or elderly parents. Our main finding is that the Trade Boards Act was effective in reducing household poverty rates among the women whose wages it would have increased.

The Economic Role of the English Poor Law, 1780-1834

Excerpt] Over the 85-year period from 1748/50 to 1832/34, real per capita expenditures on poor relief increased at an average rate of approximately 1 percent per year. There were also important changes in the administration of relief with respect to able-bodied laborers during the period. Policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unemployed and under-employed able-bodied laborers became widespread during the 1770s and 1780s in the grain-producing South and East of England. The so-called Speenhamland system of outdoor relief flourished until 1834, when it was abolished by the Poor Law Amendment Act. The aim of the thesis is to provide an economic explanation for the long-term increase in relief expenditures and for the development and persistence of Speenhamland policies.

The Poor Law, Migration, and Economic Growth

The loss to the English economy caused by decreased migration resulting from relief payments to agricultural laborers is estimated. I conclude that, at worst, the Poor Law had a small negative impact on national product. If poor relief and wages were substitutes, the Poor Law may have had a positive impact on capital formation and economic growth.