Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-31T18:27:16.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Square Deal” or Raw Deal? Market Compensation for Workplace Disamenities, 1884–1903

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Price V. Fishback  and
Shawn Everett Kantor
Price V. Fishback
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.
Shawn Everett Kantor
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Early twentieth-century social reformers claimed that public insurance was necessary because employers ignored the financial needs of their unemployed, injured, or ill workers. Reformers dismissed the idea that competition in the labor market would boost the wages of workers who faced greater chances of job-related financial distress. This article reports a test of the compensating-wage-difference hypothesis on wage samples of men, women, and children from 1884 to 1903. We found mixed support for the reformers' claims: unemployment risk tended to be fully compensated; accident risk was only partially compensated; and occupational illness went unremunerated.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 826 - 848
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Association for Labor Legislation, “Bibliography on Industrial Hygiene,” American Labor Legislation Review, 2 (06 1912), pp. 369–97.Google Scholar
Andrews, John B., “Legal Protection for Workers in Unhealthful Trades,” American Labor Legislation Review, 1 (06 1912), pp. 356–66.Google Scholar
Brown, John C., “The Condition of England and the Standard of Living: Cotton Textiles in the Northwest, 1806–1850, this Journal, 50 (09 1990), pp. 591–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “Codebook and User's Manual: Survey of 3,493 Wage Earners in California in 1892. Reported in the Fifth Biennial Report of the California Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1893” (Berkeley, 1990).Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “Codebook and User's Manual: Survey of 500 Women Wage Earners in Indianapolis in 1893. Reported in the Fifth Biennial Report of the Indiana Department of Statistics for 1893–94” (Berkeley, 1990).Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “Codebook and User's Manual: Survey of 943 Child Laborers in New Jersey, 1903. Reported in the 26th Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries of New Jersey, for the Year Ending October 31st, 1903” (Berkeley, 1990).Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “The Historical Labor Statistics Project at the University of California,” Historical Methods 24 (Spring 1991), pp. 52–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cease, Daniel L., “Compulsory Compensation for Injured Workmen,” Association for Labor Legislation Review, 1 (01 1911), pp. 41–48.Google Scholar
Clark, Lindley D., “The Legal Liability of Employers for Injuries to Their Employees, in the United States,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Bulletin No. 74 (Washington, DC, 1908), pp. 1–120.Google Scholar
Conyngton, Mary K., “Effect of Workmen's Compensation Laws in Diminishing the Necessity of Industrial Employment of Women and Children,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 217 (Washington, DC, 1918).Google Scholar
Croyle, James L., “Industrial Accident Liability Policy of the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of Legal Studies, 7 (06 1978), pp. 279–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, Miles M., “Cost of Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Insurance,” Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor No. 90 (Washington, DC, 1910).Google Scholar
Dillingham, Alan, “Sex Differences in Labor Market Injury Risk,” Industrial Relations, 20 (Winter 1981), pp. 117–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downey, E. H., Workmen's Compensation (New York, 1924).Google Scholar
Eastman, Crystal, Work-Accidents and the Law (New York, 1910).Google Scholar
Ely, Richard T., “Economic Theory and Labor Legislation,” Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the American Association for Labor Legislation (Madison, WI, 1908), pp. 10–39.Google Scholar
Epstein, Richard A., “The Historical Origins and Economic Structure of Workers' Compensation Law,” Georgia Law Review, 16 (Summer 1982), pp. 775–819.Google Scholar
Fairris, David, “Compensating Wage Differentials in the Union and Nonunion Sectors,” Industrial Relations, 28 (Fall 1989), pp. 356–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairris, David, “Compensating Payments and Hazardous Work in Union and Nonunion Settings,” Journal of Labor Research, 13 (Spring 1992), pp. 205–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farnam, Henry W., “Labor Legislation and Economic Progress,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the American Association for Labor Legislation (New York, 1910).Google Scholar
Fishback, Price V., “Liability Rules and Accident Prevention in the Workplace: Empirical Evidence from the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of Legal Studies, 16 (06 1987), pp. 305–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishback, Price, Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890–1930 (New York, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishback, Price V., and Kantor, Shawn Everett, “Did Workers Gain from the Passage of Workers' Compensation Laws?” Paper presented at the 1992 Cliometrics Conference, 05 1992.Google Scholar
Fisher, Willard C., “American Experience with Workmen's Compensation,” American Economic Review, 10 (03 1920), pp. 18–47.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (New York, 1990).Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Sokoloff, Kenneth, “Women, Children, and Industrialization in the Early Republic: Evidence from the Manufacturing Censuses,” this Journal, 42 (12 1982), pp. 741–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatton, Timothy J., and Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Unemployment, Employment Contracts, and Compensating Wage Differentials: Michigan in the 1890s,” this Journal, 51 (09 1991), pp. 605–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbs, Clarence W., Workmen's Compensation Insurance (New York, 1939).Google Scholar
Hookstadt, Carl, “Comparison of Experience Under Workmen's Compensation and Employers' Liability Systems,” Monthly Labor Review, 8 (03 1919), pp. 230–48.Google Scholar
Hookstadt, Carl, “Enforcement of Workmen's Compensation Laws, April 1922,” in U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 301 (Washington, DC, 1922).Google Scholar
“Human Life Cheaper than Coal,” Steam Shovel and Dredge, 12 (01 1908), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar
Kim, Seung-Wook and Fishback, Price V., “Wages and Accident Risk Under Different Labor Market Institutions: Railroads, 1892–1945” (Unpublished working paper, 1991).Google Scholar
Krueger, Alan B., and Summers, Lawrence H., “Efficiency Wages and the Inter-Industry Wage Structure,” Econometrica, 56 (03 1988), pp. 259–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margo, Robert A., and Villaflor, Georgia C., “The Growth of Wages in Antebellum America: New Evidence,” this Journal, 47 (12 1987), pp. 873–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGouldrick, Paul, and Tannen, Michael, “Did American Manufacturers Discriminate Against Immigrants Before 1914?” this Journal, 37 (09 1977), pp. 723–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelbacher, G. F., and Nial, Thomas M., Workmen's Compensation Insurance (New York, 1925).Google Scholar
Minnesota Bureau of Labor, Industries and Commerce, Twelfth Annual Report, 1909–1910.Google Scholar
Moore, Michael, and Viscusi, W. Kip, Compensation Mechanisms for Job Risks: Wages, Workers' Compensation and Product Liability (Princeton, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nardinelli, Clark, “Corporal Punishment and Children's Wages in Nineteenth Century Britain,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (07 1982), pp. 283–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nardinelli, Clark, “The Productivity of Corporal Punishment: A Reply to MacKinnon and Johnson,” Explorations in Economic History, 21 (04 1984), pp. 224–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohio Industrial Commission, The Ohio State Insurance Manual, Rules and Rates Effective July 1, 1923 (Columbus, OH, 1923).Google Scholar
“Protection of the Dumb Animal,” Journal of the Switchmen's Union of North America, 12 (02 1910), pp. 226–27.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “Codebook and User's Manual: A Survey of 1,165 Workers in Kansas, 1884–1887. Reported in the First, Second, and Third Annual Reports of the Kansas Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics” (Berkeley, 1989).Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard, “Codebook and User's Manual: A Survey of 1,085 Workers in Maine, 1890. Reported in the Fifth Annual Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics” (Berkeley, 1990).Google Scholar
Reede, Arthur H., Adequacy of Workmen's Compensation (Cambridge, MA, 1947).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spectator Company, The Insurance Yearbook, 1901–1902 (New York, 1901) pp. 383–91.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard, and Rosen, Sherwin, “The Value of Saving a Life: Evidence from the Labor Market,” in Terleckyj, N., ed., Household Production and Consumption (New York, 1976).Google Scholar
Topel, Robert, “Equilibrium Earnings, Turnover, and Unemployment: New Evidence,” Journal of Labor Economics, 2 (10 1984), pp. 500–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Report on the Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Parts I and II (Washington, DC, 1897).Google Scholar
Viscusi, W. Kip, “Labor Market Valuations of Life and Limb: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications,” Public Policy, 26 (Summer 1978), pp. 359–86.Google ScholarPubMed
West Virginia State Compensation Commissioner, Annual Report, July 1,1923–June 30, 1924.Google Scholar
Weiss, Harry, “Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation,” in Commons, John R., ed., History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932 (New York, 1935), pp. 564–610.Google Scholar
Whaples, Robert, and Buffum, David, “Fraternalism, Paternalism, the Family, and the Market: Insurance a Century Ago,” Social Science History, 41 (04 1991), pp. 97–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Was the Industrial Revolution Worth It? Disamenities and Death in 19th Century British Towns,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (07 1982), pp. 221–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar