Technological shocks and regional resilience: changing occupational structure and development in the Swedish regions (1640-1900)

Description

The emergence, disappearance and relocation of jobs are inherent features of modern economic growth and a result of technological change, globalisation and changing market conditions. These dynamics often have redistributive effects among workers with different skills and specialization, with great economic, social and political implications. There is also an important regional dimension of this process, with regions striving and declining. These dynamics are observed in today’s globalized world, but occurred also during past waves of globalization and industrialization.

We look at the case of Sweden, a late industrializer that developed into one of the most innovative and dynamic economies of the continent. We construct a database on the occupational structure of the Swedish parishes by gender from 1750 to 1900 and test whether Swedish local economies responded to external factors, such as openness to trade, or to internal conditions such as pre-industrial occupational specialisation and land ownership. We also test how specific protectionist policies of the 18th century, such as subsidizing manufactories and providing monopoly rights to trade in towns, affected subsequent regional industrialization.

The Swedish case will provide a methodological model at the European level for constructing pre-industrial occupational structures as well as a term of comparison of a late industrializer to the existing research conducted by the Cambridge Population Group on Britain.