The impact of industrialisation on education
Short permalink to this article: https://bit.ly/2CdkMcc
Adrien Montalbo*
Understanding the effects of industrialisation on 19th century economy and society has long been a major preoccupation in economic history. The influence of industry development on education has been a particular focus of attention in recent years. Numerous studies have researched the consequences of the industrial mode of production on education, especially at the primary level, which was increasingly rapidly in that era. As is often the case in this field, England was the laboratory, where the findings were hotly debated around a central question: “did industrialisation entail a reduction in school enrolments and literacy levels?” The question was underpinned by an assessment of the use of child labour, potentially more significant in industry than in agriculture. Thus, evaluating the complementarity of human capital and industry is essential to a better understanding of the factors that promoted economic modernisation, the transition towards sustained growth and the social consequences of industrial development.
In this article, Montalbo combines data from a highly precise study of industry and primary education at the local level in order to investigate the impact of industrial activity on education in France at the beginning of the 19th century. Thanks to the richness of the education data, this research can investigate simultaneously the influences of industry on the presence of primary schools in French local council areas, average enrolments and numbers of years spent in school, and how many subjects pupils studied.
The article first demonstrates a positive relationship between the presence of industrial activity and the presence of primary schools in local council areas. This phenomenon is explained by the supplementary economic resources that came along with the industrial activity. Indeed, by means of patents and direct taxes on commerce and industry, a local council’s financial resources grew when an industry was established in the area. This additional support increased to around 800 French francs per annum in the council areas in question. Thanks to a revenue effect that grew with the size of the industry, local authorities were more often able to fund primary schools in their communities. Thus, industrialisation at first had an indirect positive effect on school presence.
The rest of the article discusses this result in more detail, focusing on the accumulation of human capital within schools. It confirms what the existing literature shows: that there was no apparent strong complementarity between industrial activity and primary schooling at the beginning of industrialisation. In fact, the data reveal a negative association between industry presence and schooling rates, especially for the mining, textile and construction sectors, as well as industrial sectors that generally employed a high proportion of children. Finally, there is no clear relationship between different industrial characteristics and the number of subjects that the pupils studied, or the average number of years that they remained at school. Thus, industry, at least at the beginning of the 19th century, had a positive and indirect effect on primary education but did not contribute to the expansion of schooling or to a greater accumulation of human capital within schools. This complementarity was later strengthened in connection with greater technical development, but not until the second half of the century.
***
References
Original title of the article: Industrial activities and primary schooling in early nineteenth-century France
Published in: Cliometrica, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2020
Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-019-00191-0
Photo credit: (Shutterstock)
* PSE Ph.D student