Description

Labour and labour markets in and between town and countryside have been puzzling to economic historians for generations. This book brings together specialists in economic and social history to explore a series of key mechanisms related to the organisation and interdependence of urban and rural labour markets. A variety of issues, such as distribution, specialisation, and division of tasks, economies of urbanisation and -(conversely) rural de-localisation, (temporary) mobility of labour and commercial links, organisation of working time, methods of remuneration, gendered specialisation of activities, are dealt with in this book from the viewpoint of (changing) relationships between rural and urban labour markets. The renewed interest of social scientists in this research field is reflected by the diversity of the cases analysed according to geographical, demographic, and economic and political conditions. This book, therefore, provides interesting opportunities for a comparative reading of the significance of labour in the organisation of societies in the course of the centuries that preceded and led up to the 'industrial age' in Western Europe.