The Economic History Review

Child day‐labourers in agriculture: evidence from farm accounts, 1740–18501

Volume 65 Issue 3
Home > The Economic History Review > Child day‐labourers in agriculture: evidence from farm accounts, 1740–18501
Pages: 1077-1099Authors: JOYCE BURNETTE
Published online: July 29, 2011DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2011.00616.x

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While child labour has always been an important part of the industrial revolution story, there is little quantitative evidence about the number of child workers in the 1740-1850 period. This article estimates trends in the percentage of the agricultural day-labouring workforce that were children. By using the wage level to identify child workers, it is possible to estimate child labour for a large sample of English farms. It is found that girls were rarely employed as day-labourers, while boys were employed about as frequently as women. The percentage of boys in the day-labour workforce increased until the 1820s and then declined.

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