working papers
"Machines Eating Men: Shoemakers and their Children After the McKay Stitcher"
I examine the long-run impacts of a deskilling technology on workers and their children. The McKay stitcher dramatically changed shoe production in the late 19th century by replacing skilled artisans with machines and less-skilled workers. It was licensed in only a few counties and impacted workers across counties unevenly through the transportation network. More-exposed shoemakers left traditional shoemaking for lower wage occupations and did not migrate. The transfer of occupation from father to son was disrupted, and the children of shoemakers entered lower income occupations. New entrants to shoe factories came from poorer and less literatefamilies. Using a model of occupation selection, I infer the change in life-time earnings implied by the impact of the technology on occupation exit. I find that the most exposed shoemakers and their children lost 2.2 and 1.9 years of wages, respectively.
Fast Facts
Greater exposure leads to:
- High levels of occupation switching
- No migration response
- Large wealth losses
Children of shoemakers:
- Disrupted parent-to-child occupation continuance
- Entered shoe factory work temporarily
- Had lower wage occupations 40 years later
New Entrants:
- Over the decades, new entrants came from backgrounds with less wealth and lower literacy rates
"Occupation Destruction" with Joseph Price
The proliferation of automobiles in the early 20th century led to the rapid decline of occupations related to horse-driven transportation, including teamsters and drivers of wagons and buggies. Using newly digitized data on state highways in this period and data on motor vehicle registrations, we create a measure of exposure to automobiles to examine the long-run consequences for incumbent horse-related workers. We characterize the workers who adjusted best and who bore the largest burden.
Fast Facts
- Motor vehicle registrations grew exponentially--8,000 in 1900, 468,500 in 1910, 9.2 million in 1920, and 26 million in 1930
- Correspondingly, the number of individuals reporting horse-related occupations dropped in each decade, with some occupations disappearing entirely before 1930