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“‘ Everything in Common . . . But the Language’? Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850”

“‘ Everything in Common . . . But the Language’? Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850”. April 2006. Jason Long Department of Economics Colby College and University of Oxford. Joseph P. Ferrie Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University

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“‘ Everything in Common . . . But the Language’? Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850”

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  1. “‘ Everything in Common . . . But the Language’? Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850” April 2006 Jason Long Department of Economics Colby College and University of Oxford Joseph P. Ferrie Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University and NBER

  2. “Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.” Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost [1891] A century later, a modern Wilde could say much the same: Britain and the U.S. have much [if not “everything”] in common: legal and political heritage economic system culture technology and [contra Wilde] language

  3. But two things they do not share are 1. their belief in the prospects for economic and social mobility (either within or across generations) and 2. their attitudes toward an active state that taxes from the successful and transfers to the unsuccessful (though this difference has narrowed since the 1980s) The U.S. also differs from a number of otherwise similar countries (France, Germany, Canada) in these respects. What are the origins of these differences?

  4. II. What’s different now? • Three things have made linkage easier in just the last two years: • Better indexes to and availability of US/British censuses from 1850-1901 • Complete transcription of 1880/81 censuses • Public use samples from IPUMS for US, 1850-70 and 1900-20; for Britain for 1851

  5. Linked Census Data: Britain 1851 to 1881 • 2% Sample of 1851 Census 168,130 men living in England and Wales • + • Entire 1881 Census of England and Wales All 12,640,000 men in the census • ↓ • New Dataset 28,474 men observed in 1851 and 1881

  6. Match Criteria • First, last name phonetic match (e.g. “John”/“Jon”; “Aitken”/“Aitkin”). Middle initial match. • | Reported Age1881 – (Reported Age1851 + 30) |  5 • Birth county and parish match. • Approx 16,000 parishes in England and Wales • Size: Median = 405, Mean = 1,842 • High-resolution information • No duplicate matches. • No missing information.

  7. Example: John Jowitt

  8. To comprehensively compare mobility between two tables • Use single metric to summarize mobility • Can adjust the marginal frequencies in the tables being compared to a common margin. This accounts for different occupational structures

  9. Father Skilled/ Son White Collar Farmer Semi Unskilled White Collar X X X X Farmer X X X X Skilled/Semi X X X X Unskilled X X X X [(Farm-Farm)/(Farm-Unsk)]/[(Unsk-Farm)/(Unsk-Unsk)] =11.6% [(WhCol-WhCol)/(WhCol-Unsk)]/[(Unsk-Whcol)/(Unsk-Unsk)]= 9.3%

  10. In 1870, 1890 England lags behind US Catches up in the 20th century

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