IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4209.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

No Room to Live: Urban Overcrowding in Edwardian Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Gazeley, Ian

    (University of Sussex)

  • Newell, Andrew T.

    (University of Sussex)

Abstract

We study the extent of overcrowding amongst British urban working families in the early 1900s and find major regional differences. In particular, a much greater proportion of households in urban Scotland were overcrowded than in the rest of Britain and Ireland. We investigate the causes of this spatial distribution of overcrowding and find that prices, especially rents and wages are the proximate causes of the phenomenon. In large cities, ports and cities specialising in old heavy industries high rent and overcrowding are more prevalent. Within cities, but not between cities, variations in infant mortality are clearly correlated with measures of overcrowding. All the findings are consistent with a core-periphery view of urban households choosing the location and size of housing to balance the health risks of overcrowding against the risks associated with lower and less regular incomes in places where rents are lower.

Suggested Citation

  • Gazeley, Ian & Newell, Andrew T., 2009. "No Room to Live: Urban Overcrowding in Edwardian Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 4209, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4209.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pru:wpaper:38 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gazeley, Ian & Newell, Andrew T., 2007. "Poverty in Britain in 1904: An Early Social Survey Rediscovered," IZA Discussion Papers 3046, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jessica S. Bean & George R. Boyer, 2009. "The Trade Boards Act of 1909 and the Alleviation of Household Poverty," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 240-264, June.
    2. Hatton, Timothy J. & Martin, Richard M., 2010. "Fertility decline and the heights of children in Britain, 1886-1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 505-519, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    infant mortality; overcrowding; poverty; rent; Scotland; 1904; Bowley;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4209. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.