The occupational structure of England c.1710 to c.1871 Work in progress

This paper presents new evidence on the male occupational structure of England c.1710 deriving from c.1000 baptism registers and provides a preliminary analysis of the implications of the data. The key finding is that the secondary sector was perhaps twice as large, in terms of male employment, at the beginning of the eighteenth century as historians have been suggested in recent years. One implication of this is that most of the growth in the relative importance of secondary sector employment, normally associated with the post 1750 period, in fact preceded the eighteenth century. A further implication is that the increase in the productivity of the secondary sector was much larger than has been argued in the national accounts literature. The paper also explores regional differences and documents the scale of deindustrialisation in southern England over the eighteenth century. It also provides a more speculative discussion of likely trends in female employment.