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The living standards of the labouring classes in Sweden, 1750–1900: Evidence from rural probate inventories

Bengtsson, Erik LU and Svensson, Patrick LU (2020) In Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues
Abstract
This paper presents new estimates of the living standards among the rural labouring classes in Sweden from 1750 to 1900. Starting with a database of more than 1,000 probate inventories of rural landless and semi-landless people from the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900, we study the development for crofters in particular. We measure their assets and debts in great detail, mapping the development of material living standards over time. We show that the typically used real wage approach to living standards gives only a partial impression of the development of proletarian living standards. Above all, the decline of Swedish living standards from 1750 to 1800 is overestimated because of overreliance on grain prices for the CPI. We show... (More)
This paper presents new estimates of the living standards among the rural labouring classes in Sweden from 1750 to 1900. Starting with a database of more than 1,000 probate inventories of rural landless and semi-landless people from the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900, we study the development for crofters in particular. We measure their assets and debts in great detail, mapping the development of material living standards over time. We show that the typically used real wage approach to living standards gives only a partial impression of the development of proletarian living standards. Above all, the decline of Swedish living standards from 1750 to 1800 is overestimated because of overreliance on grain prices for the CPI. We show the advantages of using probate inventories for studying living standards, since they give a composite estimate of households’ material conditions, no matter what combinations of wage-labour, subsistence work and by-employment are used. This has relevance not only for Sweden, but for studies of historical living standards in general. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
living standards, wealth, poverty, Inequality, probate inventories, Sweden, rural workers
in
Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues
issue
2020:213
pages
25 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ac12168e-9074-40a0-8eb3-1d161a402e49
date added to LUP
2020-05-05 14:33:07
date last changed
2020-05-05 14:42:30
@misc{ac12168e-9074-40a0-8eb3-1d161a402e49,
  abstract     = {{This paper presents new estimates of the living standards among the rural labouring classes in Sweden from 1750 to 1900. Starting with a database of more than 1,000 probate inventories of rural landless and semi-landless people from the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900, we study the development for crofters in particular. We measure their assets and debts in great detail, mapping the development of material living standards over time. We show that the typically used real wage approach to living standards gives only a partial impression of the development of proletarian living standards. Above all, the decline of Swedish living standards from 1750 to 1800 is overestimated because of overreliance on grain prices for the CPI. We show the advantages of using probate inventories for studying living standards, since they give a composite estimate of households’ material conditions, no matter what combinations of wage-labour, subsistence work and by-employment are used. This has relevance not only for Sweden, but for studies of historical living standards in general.}},
  author       = {{Bengtsson, Erik and Svensson, Patrick}},
  keywords     = {{living standards; wealth; poverty; Inequality; probate inventories; Sweden; rural workers}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2020:213}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues}},
  title        = {{The living standards of the labouring classes in Sweden, 1750–1900: Evidence from rural probate inventories}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/79208557/LUPEH_213.pdf}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}