This article analyses the elimination of hand-spinning in Britain during the Industrial Revolution and shows that it produced large-scale technological unemployment. First, it uses new empirical evidence and sources to estimate spinning employment before the innovations of the 1760s and 1770s. The estimates show that spinning employed 8 per cent of the population by about 1770. Next, the article systematically analyses the course, extent and locations of technological unemployment produced by mechanization using more than 200 detailed qualitative sources. Evidence from more than 2,000 observations by contemporary social commentators, county agricultural surveys and the 1834 Poor Law Commission’s Rural and Town Queries shows the breadth and duration of unemployment following mechanization. The destruction of hand-spinning began to impact women and households in the 1780s, and the effects persisted until at least the mid 1830s. This technological shock likely had an unequal effect on family incomes that resulted from variation in household composition and local labour market conditions. The findings demonstrate that unemployment must be incorporated into analysis of the impacts of industrialization on living standards and they highlight the potential long-run costs of job-replacing technology.

中文翻译：

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英国工业革命中的技术性失业：手工纺纱的毁灭


本文分析了工业革命期间英国消除手纺的情况，并表明它导致了大规模的技术失业。首先，它使用新的实证证据和来源来估计 1760 年代和 1770 年代创新之前的纺纱就业。据估计，到 1770 年左右，纺纱业雇佣了 8% 的人口。接下来，本文使用 200 多个详细的定性来源系统分析了机械化造成的技术性失业的过程、程度和位置。来自当代社会评论员的 2,000 多次观察、县农业调查和 1834 年济贫法委员会的农村和城镇查询的证据显示了机械化后失业的广度和持续时间。手纺的破坏在 1780 年代开始影响妇女和家庭，并且这种影响至少持续到 1830 年代中期。由于家庭构成和当地劳动力市场状况的变化，这种技术冲击可能对家庭收入产生了不平等的影响。研究结果表明，必须将失业率纳入工业化对生活水平影响的分析中，并强调了就业替代技术的潜在长期成本。