changing occupational structures? the dutch labour market, c. 1580

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Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580-1900 Paper prepared for the session “The Divergence of National Occupational Structures 1500 to 1850” at the World Congress of the International Economic History Association, Helsinki (Finland) 21-25 August 2006 Danielle van den Heuvel and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk Draft paper; please do not quote without the authors’ permission Introduction In recent years, debates on modern economic development have become a central issue, not only in politics but also in the academic field. Bookstores all over the globe count numerous works on this theme, new ones appearing regularly, and newspapers are filled with articles and discussions on the subject. Within academia not only economists but also historians have become increasingly involved in debates on the origination of the divide between richer and poorer countries. 1 One of the central questions is what lies at the basis of a country’s economic success. A ‘modern’ structure of the labour market, with a relatively low share of the population in the primary sector, a high degree of specialization and high levels of wage labour, is often considered to be one of the driving forces behind economic achievement. With this paper we therefore want to investigate (changes in) the occupational structure of the Netherlands. In general the Dutch Republic is regarded as an economically very successful country. Several historians have stressed the remarkably ‘modern’ structure of the Dutch economy in the early modern period. 2 Supposedly, the Northern Netherlands seems to have had a very ‘modern’ occupational structure already around 1500 with a relatively low percentage of the population working in agriculture, even in the countryside. For With special thanks to Lex Heerma van Voss, Jan Lucassen and Stef Severt for comments on an earlier version of this paper and to Jelle van Lottum for drawing Figure I. 1 Well-known examples are David S. Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor (London 1998) and Kenneth Pomeranz, The great divergence: China, Europe and the making of the modern world economy (Princeton 2000). 2 Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude have labelled the Dutch Republic ‘the first modern economy’. J. de Vries and A. van der Woude, The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815 (Cambridge 1997) notably 693-710. Bas van Bavel and Jan Luiten van Zanden have recently argued that they should have taken their analysis even further; according to them, the origins of the early modern Dutch economy did not appear like a deus ex machina after 1500, but must have had earlier roots in the medieval period. See e.g. J.L. van Zanden, 'The 'revolt of the Early Modernists' and the 'first modern economy': an assessment', Economic History Review LV (2002) especially 637-638. Bas van Bavel, ‘Rural wage labour in the sixteenth-century Low Countries: an assessment of the importance and nature of wage labour in the countryside of Holland, Guelders and Flanders’, Continuity and Change 21 (2006) 37-72.

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Page 1: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580
Page 2: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

Changing Occupational Structures? Van den Heuvel and Van Nederveen Meerkerk 2

Holland, Jan Luiten van Zanden has concluded that already in 1514 only 39% of the

population worked in the primary sector (24% in agriculture, 12% in fishing, and 3% in

peat digging). Another 38% worked in industry and the rest was active in trade, transport

and other services. These figures are striking, even compared to England, where about

half of the population was working in the agricultural sector around 1800, a quite modern

occupational structure compared to other western European countries at that time.3

Furthermore, the Dutch economy was characterized by a highly specialized and

commercialized agriculture sector and a relatively large share of the population

performing wage labour.4 Therefore, in order to tell more about economic growth in

relation to the occupational structure, it is important not only to investigate changes

between the different sectors, but also look into more qualitative developments within

sectors, such as the rise of wage labour and specialization.

An analysis of the Dutch early modern labour market is not new. Jan Lucassen

did pioneering work by reconstructing large parts of the Dutch labour force (e.g.

seasonal workers and sailors).5 Moreover, his model of labour mobilisation shows the

profound flexibility of labour at that time.6 Other labour market historians rather focussed

on the sedentary working population, but they usually restricted themselves to one single

town or region.7 To complement our existing knowledge, it is desirable to come to an

overall picture of the occupational structure of the Dutch Republic. In our opinion, an

aggregate analysis of various regional population registers and censuses over a long

period can be a very useful contribution. This paper is a first attempt to make such an

analysis based on a large set of occupational data. We want to raise the following

questions. How was the Dutch labour market structured in this period? How did the

structure of the labour market change over time, and what caused these changes? In

3 Van Zanden, 'Revolt', 632-634. Note that these figures are for the most part caused by the dense urbanization of the region. In another article, Van Zanden specifies that in the countryside of Holland, 41% worked in agriculture, 20% in fishing and 6% in peat digging (thus 67% in the primary sector). Jan Luiten van Zanden, ‘Taking the measure of the Early Modern economy: Historical national accounts for Holland in 1510-14’, Economic History Review 6 (2002) 138. 4 According to Van Bavel, ‘Rural wage labour’, 62-63. Holland c. 1550: 48% wage labour; Guelders river area: 57% wage labour; Flanders: 25% wage labour. 5 See e.g. Jan Lucassen, Migrant labour in Europe 1600-1900 (London 1987); Jaap Bruijn and Jan Lucassen, Op de schepen der Oost-Indische Compagnie. Vijf artikelen van J. de Hullu (Groningen 1980). A revision of the size of the maritime labour force as estimated in 1980 has lately been undertaken by Jelle van Lottum and Jan Lucassen. Jelle van Lottum and Jan Lucassen, Varen over de baren (forthcoming). 6 Jan Lucassen, ‘Labour and Early Modern economic development’, in: Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen (eds.), A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge 1995) 367-409; Jan Lucassen, ‘Mobilization of labour in early modern Europe’, in: Maarten Prak (ed.), Early modern capitalism (Cambridge 2000) 161-174. 7 Among others: Leiden: F. Daelemans, ‘Leiden 1581. Een socio-demografisch onderzoek’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 19 (1975) 137-218; H.A. Diederiks, D.J. Noordam and H.D. Tjalsma (eds.), Armoede en sociale spanning. Sociaal-historische studies over Leiden in de achttiende eeuw (Hilversum 1985). North Holland: A.M. Van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier : een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw (Wageningen 1972). Veluwe: H.K. Roessingh, ‘Beroep en bedrijf op de Veluwe in het midden van de 18de eeuw’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 13 (1965) 181-274.

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what economic sectors were people employed in the countryside and in towns? To what

extent did this vary throughout space and time? We will differentiate between the various

areas within the country, and we will especially pay attention to differences between

Holland and the other provinces.

By answering these questions we want to contribute to a more profound insight

into the influence of changes in labour market structures on general economic

developments. It is widely known that the economic success of the Dutch Republic did

not last, and that from the end of the seventeenth century onwards its economy

underwent relative stagnation and decline. As opposed to other Western European

countries, large-scale industrialization took off rather late: around 1850. How can it be

that the ‘first modern economy’ was so late to industrialize after all? Might it be that its

head start slowed down the need for later processes of modernization?8 With this paper

we hope to (at least partly) answer these intriguing questions by giving a long-term view

of more than three centuries of labour market developments in the Northern

Netherlands. Furthermore, we will not only focus on the urban labour market, but also

provide information about villages in the countryside. In the end, we hope that the

outcome of this paper will enable us to compare developments on the Dutch labour

market with those of other countries, and to be more precise, with those of England,

Japan, India and Taiwan.9

The paper is structured as follows. After a discussion of our source material and

method, we will address the developments in the labour market in both urban and rural

areas in different periods. Following the availability of the sources, we have chosen a

rather traditional division in three periods, each of which represents a particular stage in

the economic development of the Northern Netherlands. The year 1580 forms the kick-

off for the first period (1580-1675). This period, generally known as the ‘Dutch Golden

Age’ was characterised by enormous economic growth. In the second period under

scrutiny, the eighteenth century, the Dutch economy stagnated and even faced a relative

decline, for instance compared to Britain. The third and final period is 1800-1900, in

which developments in the labour market took place that ultimately led to

industrialization.

8 Of course, we are not the first to address these questions. A recent example of a research project that tried to come to a better understanding of the slow industrialization of the Netherlands is that of the analysis of the Dutch national accounts in the nineteenth century. See Jan Luiten van Zanden and Arthur van Riel, The strictures of inheritance: the Dutch economy in the nineteenth century, (Princeton 2000) 1-10. For earlier literature on the subject see: Johannes de Vries, De economische achteruitgang der Republiek in de achttiende eeuw (Amsterdam 1959) A.J. de Jonge, De industrialisatie in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914 (Amsterdam 1968); Richard Griffiths, Industrial retardation in the Netherlands 1830-1850 (Den Haag 1979); De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy. 9 These are the countries under study in the other papers in the session.

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Sources and method

To answer the research questions raised above, we mainly rely on tax registers and

population records. We have collected large databases of quantitative source material

for the period of 1580-1810, based on our own archival research and publications by

others.10 For the nineteenth century, we have used the available national statistics and

existing literature.11

There are some clear disadvantages in using tax and population registers as

sources for reconstructing the historical labour market. First of all, they offer us a very

static recording of the labour market at one particular moment in time. This certainly

does not always do justice to the usual complexity and flexibility of the early modern

labour market, in which people had more than one job, shifted jobs regularly, and often

performed seasonal labour.12 Secondly, most special taxes were only imposed on

people who had an income or capital above a certain limit. Many participants in the

labour market did not reach this level of income, and as a consequence they were not

registered. In some cases however, every head of household was taxed, or a shadow

archive was made of those who did not have to pay taxes. These are valuable sources

for the historian who is interested in the whole social spectrum of the early modern

labour market. However, this immediately leads us to a third source problem. Because

usually only the head of the household or the family was registered, the possible labour

of many married women, live-in (maid)servants, lodgers and children remains invisible.

This especially leads to an under-representation of the female part of the workforce.13

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be too pessimistic. For the Northern Netherlands,

many complete registrations have survived that provide us with essential information

10 See the Appendix for a systematic overview. Primary sources: Municipal Archives ’s-Hertogenbosch, Biljettering 1742; ibidem, Blokboeken 1775-1785; Volkstelling 1808. Regional Historical Centre Tilburg, Kapitale schatting 1665; ibidem, Volkstelling 1810; Historical Centre Overijssel, Volkstelling 1742; ibidem, Volkstelling 1812; Municipal Archives Leiden, Volkstelling 1581; ibidem, Kohier Hoofdgeld 1749 (made accessible by NIWI at: http://esf.niwi.knaw.nl/esf1999/projects/kohier); Municipal Archives Alkmaar, Personele Quotisatie Graft 1742; ibidem, geredresseerd kohier voor de imposten op zout- en zeepgeld Winkel 1734; ibidem, kohier van het familiegeld Winkel 1742; ibidem, Kohier familiegeld Zijpe (1674), ibidem, Kohier van Zijpe van de familie (1742), ibidem, Patentregister Zijpe (1808); Municipal Archives Rotterdam, Klein Familiegeld 1674, thanks to H. Kentin and Marjolein van Dekken, Personele Quotisatie 1742. Literature: J.G. van Dillen (ed.), Amsterdam in 1585. Het kohier der capitale impositie van 1585 (Amsterdam 1941); Diederiks e.a., Armoede en sociale spanning); W.F.H. Oldewelt, Kohier van de personeele quotisatie te Amsterdam over het jaar 1742, 2 delen (Amsterdam 1945). G.J. Peltjes, Leidse lasten. Twee belastingkohieren uit 1674 (Leiden 1995); H. van Wijngaarden, Zorg voor de kost. Armenzorg, arbeid en onderlinge hulp in Zwolle 1650-1700 (Amsterdam 2000). 11 CBS, Volkstelling 1849 and CBS, Beroepentelling 1899, both made accessible online: http://www.volkstellingen.nl/nl/. 12 Lucassen, Migrant labour; A. Knotter, 'Problems of the family economy: peasant economy, domestic production and labour markets in pre-industrial Europe', Economic and Social History in the Netherlands 6 (1994) 44. 13 Other historians also recognize this problem. See for example: Bridget Hill, ‘Women, Work and the Census: a Problem for Historians of Women’, in: History Workshop Journal 35 (1993), 78-94; S.C. Ogilvie, A bitter living. Women, markets, and social capital in Early Modern Germany (Oxford 2003) 23.

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about male and female heads of households. Although they only formed part of the

working population, these sources at least give us systematic information about all

heads of households. Aggregating all these systematic local labour market structures

enables us to give a broad picture of changes within the Dutch Republic over a long

period of time. Furthermore, a few registrations have indeed listed all members of a

certain community.14 Since we have so many sources, especially for the seventeenth

and eighteenth century, some important general conclusions can be drawn.

The scheme in the Appendix gives an overview of all registers analysed for this

paper. As can be seen, for each part of the country involved in the analysis, we have

selected both urban and rural areas (when available). In selecting the different cases we

have taken into account the possibility of extrapolation of the results. Although regional

differences will have existed even within certain types of localities, in general it will be

possible to discern specific development patterns of for instance commercial towns,

industrial areas, and the more agrarian countryside outside Holland. In order to give both

a coherent and differentiated view, we will not only look at the province of Holland, but

also give information about other provinces, such as Overijssel, Guelders and Brabant.

Although we are unable to cover the country as a whole, this selection of localities in the

end makes it possible to draw a general picture for the Northern Netherlands.

Figure I. The Dutch Republic: the areas under study15

14 For a good example see: Regional Historical Centre Tilburg, Volkstelling 1810; CBS, Volkstelling 1849; CBS, Beroepentelling 1899. 15 Copyright Jelle van Lottum 2006.

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For our analysis, we have used a categorization which is currently used by many

historians working on the Dutch (early modern) labour market. This categorization

roughly resembles PST.16 A short elaboration on the system, and our own adjustments,

can be found in the Appendix. We will refer to the primary, secondary, and tertiary

sectors according to the occupational classification in this scheme. In this paper, we will

first of all pay attention to shifts between the three different sectors, in order to uncover

changes in the occupational structure.17 But because we believe that economic

development can sometimes not be indicated by sectoral shifts, but rather by

developments within sectors, we will also analyse some of these ‘internal’ changes. In

doing this, our main focus will be on developments in the textile industry and in the retail

trade, to investigate respectively the rise of wage labour and new patterns of

specialisation.

The Dutch Republic’s Golden Age, c. 1580-1675

For political, economic, and religious reasons, the Netherlands started a war for

independence from the Spanish Habsburg monarchy in 1568, which would last until the

Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Already in 1588, seven provinces in the North proclaimed

the Dutch Republic of United Provinces.18 Despite the ongoing warfare, relative peace

existed after 1585 in the economically most important coastal provinces of the Republic,

Holland and Zeeland. In the Southern Netherlands, the war against Catholic Spain

continued, resulting in the loss of their dominant position in trade and industry.

Thousands of Protestant migrants fled from the southern parts of the Netherlands to the

safer cities in the North. This migration provided the Republic with a new labour force of

both skilled and unskilled workers. Furthermore, many of the refugees were rich

merchants from cities like Antwerp and Ghent, who brought capital and knowledge,

giving an economic impulse to the Dutch cities in which they settled.19 The unstable

16 The PST-categorization was developed by Tony Wrigley and Leigh Shaw-Taylor to reconstruct the evolution of the occupational structure of Britain in the period 1397-1911. See for an elaborate descripation: Leigh Shaw-Taylor, ‘The occupational structure of England c. 1750-1881. A preliminary report.’ [online: http://www-hpss.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/occupations/introduction/summary.pdf] 17 We would also like to stress here that the road to ‘modern economic development’ not necessarily meant a transition from a predominantly agrarian via an industrialised to a service economy. In the western world for instance, some important exceptions to this rule are the US and the Netherlands. Göran Therborn, European modernity and beyond: The trajectory of European societies, 1945-2000 (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi 1995) 68-71. 18 See: I. Schöffer e.a. (ed.), De Lage Landen van 1500 tot 1780 (Amsterdam 1991) 140. 19 A standard work on southern Netherlands migration to the Republic is: J.G.C.A. Briels, De Zuid-Nederlandse immigratie, 1572-1630 (Haarlem 1978). See O. Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden en de opkomst van de Amsterdamse stapelmarkt (1578-1630) (Hilversum 2000) 15-28, for a good overview of the discussions on the role of Flemish merchants for the Republic’s economy.

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international situation, with England and France at constant war, continued for almost a

century.

Due to all these circumstances, the Dutch Republic became the leading

economic power from the 1580s until at least 1650. The dominant role of the Dutch in

shipping and trade led to the development of a large staple market in the city of

Amsterdam, where people dealt in goods from all over the world.20 Although the

literature has focussed very much on the Republic’s commercial and maritime function, it

has lately been recognized that industry has also been very important for its economic

development in this period.21

In 1581, four years before the fall of Antwerp, and with its dramatic changes in

the Dutch economy as described above, the population of the Holland town of Leiden

was registered. At that time Leiden counted approximately 12,000 inhabitants, a number

that would quintuple to about 62,000 a century later. In this particular registration the

occupations of 15.5% of the population (and two-thirds of the household heads) are

mentioned. At this moment in time, before the migration of thousands of textile workers

from the Southern Netherlands and the growth of this particular economic sector,

industry was already by far the largest employer: 1,179 heads of household (63%)

worked in this sector. Second came the tertiary sector, but with only 598 persons, it was

a little more than half the size of the secondary sector. Agriculture was small in Leiden,

and consisted of only 101 people (5.4%), mainly working as farmers and market

gardeners. The category ‘other’ contains unspecified labour, such as day labourers and

other casual labourers, which we were unable to categorize into one of the three sectors.

At about the same time, in 1585, in Amsterdam a tax register was conducted.

The purpose of the tax levy was to raise enough money to form an army of horsemen

and foot soldiers to free Antwerp from Spanish rule. Only the well-to-do were

incorporated in this registration. The result is that the lower groups in society such as

day labourers are missing, but also a large part of the independent craftsmen: only the

richer artisans are included.22 This has important consequences for the distribution of the

household heads over the different economic sectors. As we can see in Figure II, the

majority of the registered population worked in the tertiary sector, mainly in commerce

and shipping. About 40% of the household heads found a job in industry. Commercial

enterprise was already well developed in sixteenth-century Amsterdam, and it is

therefore not unthinkable that a large share of the population worked in this economic

20 J.I. Israel, Dutch primacy in world trade, 1585-1740 (Oxford 1989); C. Lesger, Handel in Amsterdam ten tijde van de Opstand. Kooplieden, commerciële expansie en verandering in de ruimtelijke economie van de Nederlanden ca. 1550-ca. 1630 (Hilversum 2001). 21 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 270-272. 22 Van Dillen, Amsterdam in 1585, xxxiii-xxxiv.

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sector. Nevertheless, the fact that in general people with lower incomes are excluded

from this registration makes it highly possible that the size of industry was even larger

than presented in Figure II. But even if all household heads had been included, the

share of people working in the secondary sector would not have been as large as in

Leiden, where industry was far more important than commerce and shipping.

Figure II. Household heads with occupational record, Leiden 1581 and Amsterdam 1585

Unfortunately, we have no data for the period in which the Northern Netherlands

experienced its major economic blooming. The first registrations that are useful for this

paper are from the 1660s and 1670s. They offer us the opportunity to observe the

structure of the labour market in the period directly after the economic prosperity and, in

the case of Leiden, to compare the situation before and after the Golden Age. In 1674,

54% of the registered household heads in Leiden worked in the secondary sector,

slightly less, 44%, in the tertiary and only 2% in the primary sector. While agriculture and

industry clearly diminished (from respectively 5% and 63% in 1581), the service sector

knew a higher share of people involved. Although it is conceivable that with the ongoing

commercialization and upcoming consumer society the service sector in absolute terms

grew in seventeenth-century Leiden, the downturn in the share of people involved in

industry is more likely a distortion in the source. As the 1674 registration only included

household heads with a yearly income of 365 guilders and over, many (mainly industrial)

wage labourers were excluded from the registration. This implies that the share of

people working in industry must have been higher.

The spinners form a good illustration for this problem. In the third quarter of the

seventeenth century, there must have been hundreds of spinners in the Leiden textile

industry, but only six (male) spinners were registered in 1674. On the contrary, in 1581

Amsterdam 1585

0%

40%

60%

0% agriculture

industry

service

other

Leiden 1581

5%

63%

32%

0%

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there had already been 74 (male and female) spinning heads of households. As the

industry grew spectacularly in the following century, and the import of yarn was not

sufficient to supply all weavers, considering the amount of cloth that was produced in

Leiden in 1674, we may assume that these six spinners are hardly representative for the

actual number present in the town. Besides the fact that also many non-household

heads were working as spinners, the majority of the household heads spinning were not

able to earn an income as high as 365 guilders a year. Apparently only these six men

were able to do so.23 In addition to this specific example, there will have been many

other industrial wage labourers (carders, combers, guild journeymen etc.) that are not

included in this registration. Approximately 30 kilometres to the south of Leiden and also in the province of

Holland, we find the city of Rotterdam, a port town that had about 40,000 inhabitants in

the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1674 the same registration took place as

in Leiden, however compared to the latter town, a much larger share of the total

population was registered.24 This implies that the standard of living in Rotterdam was

higher than in Leiden. The occupational structures of both towns look more or less the

same, at least for the particular group that has been taken down for taxation. In

Rotterdam 55% of the people worked in industry, 39% in the service sector, and 4%

were employed in agriculture.25

A comparison of the share of people employed in the maritime sector shows that

in the 1674 registrations Rotterdam and Leiden did not differentiate that much. While

8.5% of the people in the tertiary sector in Leiden worked in inland shipping and

seafaring, in Rotterdam this was not much higher and consisted of 12.5%. The majority

worked as bargemen and many of the seafaring personnel was therefore missing in the

registration. It is well known that the port towns in the province of Holland suffered from

a so-called ‘(East) Indian Leak’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Recently

Victor Enthoven showed that also a West Indian Leak existed that was comparable in

size.26 Despite the fact that the East and West India Companies employed many foreign

sailors, still thousands of Dutch men left the country employed by these companies.27

Especially for the 1674 registration of Rotterdam this means that the service sector will

23 Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Unpublished PhD-thesis, chapter 4. See also: Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, ‘Segmentation in the pre-industrial labour market: Women’s work in the Dutch textile industry, 1581-1810’, International Review of Social History 51 (2006) 201, 204. 24 In Leiden 5% of the population was registered, and in Rotterdam 12%. 25 The primary sector might be a little overrepresented due to the inclusion of neighboring villages of Charlois and Katendrecht in the registration. 26 Victor Enthoven, ‘Dutch crossings. Migration between the Netherlands and the New World, 1600-1800’ Atlantic Studies 2:2 (2005) 153-176. 27 Jan Lucassen, ‘A multinational and its labor force: The Dutch East India Company, 1595-1795’, International labor and working-class history 66 (Fall 2004) 12-39.

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have been larger than presented. Whereas we have seen that in Leiden the under-

representation will have manifested itself in the secondary sector, we might conclude

that in Rotterdam the tertiary sector will have been larger.

When we expand our view to the countryside we get a completely different view

of the Dutch labour market in the seventeenth century. A comparison of two villages, in

two totally different settings, results in some remarkable conclusions. De Zijpe, a typical

Holland ‘polder’, was founded in 1579 when a piece of land of 6,755 hectares to the

northwest of the city of Alkmaar was gained from the sea. The colonization of this new

piece of land happened gradually: in 1622 only 1,283 people had settled in the polder

and a lot of land was still uninhabited. Nevertheless, from the 1630s the number of

inhabitants rose quicker than before: from 308 houses present in that year the number of

houses grew to 576 in 1674, with a population of 2,412.28 At the other end of the country,

in the southern province of Brabant we find the village of Tilburg. This was an

industrialising village where the textile industry was of great importance: cloth from

Tilburg started to become known throughout the country for its low prices. In 1665

Tilburg was on the eve of an enormous bloom of its textile industry, with a population of

approximately 7,000 inhabitants.29

In the comparison of the occupational structures of both villages, agriculture

plays a remarkable role. In 1665 we find 885 people in Tilburg registered as farmer or

agricultural labourer, which is more than half of the registered population. In De Zijpe in

1674 235 household heads held an occupation in the primary sector: only 41%, despite

the large amount of agricultural land and the fact that the majority of the De Zijpe houses

were farms.30 Nevertheless, we may assume that the share of people performing

agricultural labour was higher. De Zijpe knew a large number of male day labourers

(‘hantschoijers’ and ‘arbeitsmannen’). It is likely that these men were mainly employed in

the primary sector as grass mowers and haymakers.31 Interestingly enough, when

adding them all to the primary sector (which is challengeable, because some of them will

have worked in the other two sectors) the share of household heads rises to about 60%

and is comparable to that of Tilburg (57%). In any case, we can conclude from this that

wage labour already played a major role in the Holland countryside.

Another striking difference is the size of the tertiary sector in both towns. While

Tilburg was much larger in population numbers, De Zijpe had a much larger service

sector. An analysis of the size of the retailing branch in both localities shows that the

28 A. Zijp, ‘Hoofdstukken uit de economische en sociale geschiedenis van de polder Zijpe in de 17de en 18de eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 70 (1957) 29-48 and 176-188, esp. 34-35, 40, 42, 178. 29 Gerard van Gurp, ‘Proto-industrialisatie in Tilburg en Geldrop’, Textielhistorische Bijdragen 39 (1999) 37. 30 Together with hunters and fishermen the primary sector consisted of 44%. 31 Cf. Jan Lucassen, Migrant labour in Europe 1600-1900 (London 1987) 52.

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Brabant village was much more self-sustainable. When comparing the amount of

shopkeepers and traders present, we find only 14 traders (0.2% of the population) in

Tilburg and 26 (5%) in De Zijpe. Besides wholesalers as cloth merchants in Tilburg and

wood merchants in De Zijpe, the retail trade in the former village consisted of 1 retailer

per 1,000 inhabitants and was significantly more developed in the latter with 1 retailer

per 26 inhabitants. Apparently, contrary to the inhabitants of the North Holland

countryside, the Tilburg villagers were, at this moment in time, still very much relying on

home grown and produced products for their necessities of life. Moreover, as many other

Holland villages, De Zijpe knew a reasonably large population of sailors and skippers

and seafaring and inland shipping made up 56% of the economic services.32

In the seventeenth century the occupational structure of the different localities

varied enormously. Already before Amsterdam became the commercial and financial

centre of the world, its economic structure was characterised by a highly developed

service sector. Leiden and Rotterdam can be considered as prototypes for the smaller

towns in the province of Holland. Rotterdam was a middle-sized port town with a

differentiated economic structure that consisted of a combination of fishing, merchant

shipping, navy and various industries and was in economic structure probably quite

representative for towns as Enkhuizen and Delft. Leiden on the other hand, was an

‘industrial town’ with a large export industry, and was therefore roughly comparable to

other industrial centres such as Haarlem and Gouda. The province of Holland seems to

have had a typical urban system in which the different towns, with their own

specialization, to a certain extent complemented each other.33

A comparison of the occupational structures of a typical Holland polder with the

countryside of Brabant suggests that Holland was indeed divergent from other parts of

the country. In the next section, the eighteenth-century data will tell us more about the

differences between Holland and ‘the rest’, and their meaning.

The ‘long eighteenth century’ (1675-1795): stagnation and decline?

The ‘long eighteenth century’ was traditionally seen as a period of crisis and

stagnation.34 In the first half of the 1670s, a severe economic crisis occurred, with

sharply declining prices, which also struck contemporaries as most extraordinary. Indeed

the wage level remained stable, at least until 1740, which implied a higher real wage

32 This is also typical for many other localities in the Holland countryside. Piet Boon, Bouwers van de zee: zeevarenden van het Westfriese platteland c. 1680-1720 (Den Haag 1996). 33 Earlier Jan Lucassen has come to a similar categorization based on size and economic structure, however his clusters are more geographically determined. Jan Lucassen, Immigranten in Holland 1600-1800. Een kwantitatieve benadering, CGM Working Paper 3 (2002) 21. 34 See e.g. J.A. Faber, ‘De Noordelijke Nederlanden van 1480 tot 1780. Structuren in beweging’, in: Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 5 (1979) 197-207.

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level. However, relatively high nominal wages also meant a growing pressure on the

wage bill, and with a declining demand, this led to decreasing employment possibilities.35

Despite this overall negative picture, some nuances are in order. First of all, the

long eighteenth century also experienced its economic upswings, albeit not as

spectacular as in the century before.36 Moreover, there were distinctly diverse regional

developments, with for instance an expanding (proto-)industrialization of the countryside

in the Eastern and Southern provinces in the period 1675-1740.37 And, apart from the

regional differences, there were also overall developments in the various economic

sectors, such as changes in the retailing branch, brought about by changing consumer

behaviour.38

In 1742 the province of Holland started levying a new tax, the Personele

Quotisatie (PQ). This tax only applied to families with an income from 600 guilders a

year. In practice, only about 5% of the total population (c. 20-25% of all household

heads) were listed. This implies that most casual and wage labourers will not have been

recorded in this tax register. Furthermore, foreigners, ministers, army officers and

journeymen were excepted from this taxation. Despite the under-representation of

certain groups, notably the lower strata of society, an analysis is nevertheless useful. In

the city of Amsterdam, for instance, the PQ indeed taxed 5% of all inhabitants, exactly

the same percentage as in 1585. This enables a comparison over time.39 The share of

industry had dropped in this period from 40% to a mere 24%. On the other hand, the

service sector had expanded considerably: from about 60% to almost 73%. This

increase was particularly due to the growth of the tertiary sector. The most obvious was

the increase of various sorts of trade: wholesale and distributive trade, but also retailing

had developed. Furthermore, there were a lot of rentiers who, in the eighteenth century,

were often active participants in the financial branch. Moreover, some of these rentiers

35 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 674-675. 36 De Vries, De economische achteruitgang, esp. 167-184. 37 See e.g. Cor Trompetter, Agriculture, proto-industry and Mennonite entrepreneurship: A history of the textile industries in Twente, 1600-1815 (Amsterdam 1997); Gerard van Gurp, Brabantse stoffen op de wereldmarkt. Proto-industrialisering in de Meierij van ’s-Hertogenbosch 1620-1820 (Tilburg 2004). 38 Jan de Vries, ‘Between purchasing power and the world of goods: Understanding the household economy in Early Modern Europe’ in: John Brewer and Roy Porter (eds.), Consumption and the world of goods (London/New York 1993) 85-132, 107-120, Jan de Vries, ‘The industrious revolution and economic growth’ in: Paul A. David and Mark Thomas, The economic future in historical perspective (Oxford 2003) 43-72, 47. 39 Based on data presented earlier by W.F. Oldewelt, Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen made a reconstruction of part of the labour market by estimating the numbers of guild members in Amsterdam in 1688. A conversion to PST leads to 0% in the primary sector, 47% in the secondary and 53% in the tertiary sector. However a comparison with our data on household heads is problematic because a large part of non-guilded labour (merchants, day labourers, primary sector) is not included. At the same time, in the guilds that united retailers a lot of non-household heads (notably married women) were members. Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen, ‘Ambachtsgilden binnen een handelkapitalistische stad: aanzetten voor een analyse van Amsterdam rond 1700’ in: NEHA-Jaarboek 61 (Amsterdam 1998) 121-162, Oldewelt, Kohier, dl. I , 12, Danielle van den Heuvel, ‘Women, retailing and consumer changes. Evidence from eighteenth-century ’s-Hertogenbosch’. Paper presented at the Cambridge Group of Population and Social Structure, 30 January 2006.

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were also engaged in trade in goods.40 It is notable that relatively many of the

merchants, traders and rentiers were women.

The fact that Amsterdam had grown about 8 times from 30,000 to 240,000

inhabitants since 1585,41 of course had its implications for the occupational structure. In

the Golden Age thousands of migrants had been attracted by the city’s expanding

commercial, financial and naval activities. Although industry is under-recorded in this

source, since casual and wage labourers were over-represented in this sector, the

relative decline of the sector is nevertheless symbolic. Indeed, the previous period of

economic crisis especially hit the industrial sector.

This becomes even clearer when we compare Amsterdam with other cities and

towns in this period. Rotterdam had also obtained an important commercial and naval

function in the seventeenth century, but, as we have read, here industry had still been by

far the largest sector in 1674 (c. 55%). Although the PQ 1742 is less representative for

the working population than the 1674 tax register,42 the share of industry had dropped to

29%. This steep decline within less than 70 years time cannot solely be ascribed to

registration differences. Even more spectacular was the growth of the service sector.

Although this sector will be somewhat over-represented in the PQ register, its rise from

less than 40% in 1674 to 70% in 1742, indicates a significant change in the city’s

occupational structure.43 Because the number of inhabitants had risen since 1674, it is

unlikely that it was only a question of relative increase, due to industrial workers leaving

the city. Instead, the city had a large influx of immigrants, especially after 1730.44 More

probable is that the economic crisis was very much restricted to the secondary sector,

and that Rotterdam instead more and more focussed on commerce.

For Leiden, we have a registration of all occupations of household heads for

about the same period (1749). Here, industry was still by far the most important sector:

almost 75% of the working population with an occupational record. Compared to 1674,

when industry was, as we have mentioned, under-recorded, it is much more

representative for the entire population. Therefore, it is sensible to make a comparison

with the census of 1581. The growth of the secondary sector in Leiden can be mainly

attributed to the rise of the textile industry. In 1581, 23% of all household heads already

worked in textile production (36.5% of all heads in industry), but this was before the

actual take-off of the industry. Although the real blooming of the textile branch occurred 40 All this activity is exactly why we include rentiers in the service sector, instead of considering them as people ‘without occupation’. 41 Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and James E. Oeppen, ‘Reconstructing the demographic regime of Amsterdam 1681-1920’ Economic and Social History in the Netherlands 5 (1993) 87. 42 Klein Familiegeld Rotterdam: 12% of all inhabitants listed; PQ 1742: 5% listed. 43 We say ‘somewhat’, because the under representation of industrial labour will partly have been compensated by the absence of sailors in these registers, as was stated in the previous section. 44 Arie van der Schoor, Stad in aanwas: geschiedenis van Rotterdam tot 1813 (Zwolle, 1999) 327.

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between 1585 and 1660, in 1749 still almost 50% of all household heads (68% of all

heads in industry) worked in textile production. This of course leaves unmentioned the

thousands of women and children who also worked in this sector, but who are usually

invisible in these sources. As said, however, the Leiden textile industry was far over its

top in 1749. A lot of workers had become wage dependent in the course of the

seventeenth century, due to changes in the production relations. The long economic

crisis starting at the end of the century, had led to overall impoverishment and

unemployment, but especially hit these wage earners. Not surprisingly, a lot of people

left the city of Leiden in this period: its number of inhabitants had dropped from between

55.000 and 65.000 in 1675 to a mere 37,000 around 1750.45

In cities outside Holland, developments were strikingly different. The eastern

province of Overijssel and the southern province of Brabant, for instance, had not

exactly experienced a ‘golden age’ during the seventeenth century. First of all, more

than the provinces in the west of the Republic, these areas had been confronted with

warfare in the first half of the seventeenth century. Secondly, especially Brabant had

suffered from trade barriers imposed by the powerful cities of Holland. The eastern town

of Zwolle had managed to profit a little, but not much, from the Republic’s economic

boom during the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the town experienced growth

between 1670 and the first decades of the eighteenth century, especially due to

developments in shipping. A comparison between its occupational structure in 1712 and

1742 shows that, on first appearance, it hardly changed in thirty years time.

Nevertheless, within the different sectors, changes did occur. In the service sector, for

instance, a modest growth of commerce, in particular retailing, took place. The industrial

sector waned somewhat, and this was mainly attributed to the declining linen industry,

which began to suffer from the rise of proto-industry on the eastern countryside, as we

will turn to in a while.

The Brabant town of ’s-Hertogenbosch, on the other hand had only known

stagnation and crisis since the end of the sixteenth century. Due to political isolation, and

more particularly the industrial restrictions, it was never able to revive its industrial

greatness. However, ’s-Hertogenbosch did have an important function as a regional

service centre. And because it was a frontier town, it also had an important military

function. Therefore, in 1742 the town had a highly developed tertiary sector, which

employed more than 60 percent of the working population. By far the most important

were traders and retailers (see Table 1). This applied to both men and women, but for

women this branch was relatively twice as important. Furthermore, relatively many

45 Dirk Jaap Noordam, ‘Demografische ontwikkelingen‘ in: S. Groenveld (ed.), Leiden. De Geschiedenis van een Hollandse stad. Deel 2 1574-1795, 43-53, esp. 44.

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women were rentiers, like in Amsterdam in the same period. Military and public service,

on the other hand, were the second and third category for men, whereas we don’t find

any women in these occupations.

Table 1 - Heads of households in the service sector, ’s-Hertogenbosch 1742 Men (n = 928) Women (n = 261) Total (n = 1,189)

Trade/retailing 33.9% 60.3% 39.7% Military 16.6% 0.0% 13.0% Public service 14.5% 0.0% 11.3% Transport 12.0% 0.8% 9.5% Inn-keeping/lodging etc. 10.1% 9.5% 10.0% Religious service 3.3% 5.0% 3.7% Medical service/nursing 2.3% 0.8% 1.9% Teaching 1.8% 3.4% 2.2% Administrative/legal service 1.8% 0.0% 1.4% Finance/rentiers 1.7% 12.6% 4.1% Household service 0.8% 7.6% 2.3% Miscellaneous 1.2% 0.0% 0.9% Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

In 1775, the occupations of the ’s-Hertogenbosch inhabitants were again registered. The

population had grown since 1742 from about 12,500 to 14,000. There had been an

industrial revival in the second half of eighteenth century, which mainly involved a growth

of the textile industry, leading to a lot of wage earning producers in new consumer goods

as lace and knitwear. Especially these branches led the secondary sector to grow from

35% to 46%. The tertiary sector, on the other hand, declined from 62% to 49%. This did

not mean that the service sector diminished in an absolute sense: it even managed to

grow somewhat, but there were no striking quantitative or qualitative developments

within the service sector in this period.46 The main changes thus occurred in industry,

but, as we will see later on, this was just a temporary upswing without lasting

consequences for the town’s occupational structure or economic function.

In the eighteenth-century Northern Netherlands the structure of the urban

retailing sector underwent significant changes. From the end of the seventeenth century

the influx of new products from the East and the West and ongoing specialization lead to

a stronger diversification of retailers present in the towns. These developments seem to

have spread from cities in the province of Holland (Leiden) to towns in the other

provinces, where commercial towns (’s-Hertogenbosch) preceded more provincial towns

(Zwolle). While in 1674 Leiden 16% of the traders were not specialized, 75 years later

46 Danielle van den Heuvel, ‘Weibliche Kaufleute in der Niederländischen Republik. Einzelhändlerinnen in ‘s-Hertogenbosch des 18. Jahrhunderts: eine Fallstudie’ in: Mark Häberlein and Christof Jeggle (eds.), Praktiken des Handels (forthcoming).

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was reduced to 4%. Around the same time, in 1742, the share of non-specialized traders

in ’s-Hertogenbosch and Zwolle was much higher: respectively 23% and 49%.47

Tables 2 and 3 in Appendix C make even clearer that in this period (c. 1674-

1749) the structure of the retailing sector changed profoundly, but that these changes

occurred gradually in the different parts of the country. Both in the selling of consumable

household goods and of wearing apparel,48 we can distinguish a pattern in which Leiden

preceded ’s-Hertogenbosch and Zwolle. In the mid-eighteenth century only relatively

little specialization had taken place in the latter town, while Leiden was characterised by

the largest diversification among traders. The specialization of traders in ’s-

Hertogenbosch was less crystallised than in Leiden, but more than in Zwolle. While in

Zwolle no real changes seem to have taken place before 1750, in the Brabant town it is

likely that the first changes occurred around 1720.49 Furthermore, while in Leiden

already rather large numbers were involved in the sale of ‘new products’ as

haberdashery and coffee and tea, this was much less the case in the other two towns.

As the Leiden register of permits for dry coffee and tea dealers shows, these

developments could have great impact on the size (and probably also the composition)

of the sector as in the period 1747-1752 the majority (63%) of the 195 permit holders

were married women.50

Finally, let us shift our focus from the eighteenth-century urban context to the

rural environment. In the Holland countryside, we have registers for the De Zijpe polder

and the small rural town Winkel for 1742, and for the village Graft in 1748 (see Figure

III).51 Both De Zijpe’s number of residents and its occupational structure had not

changed much since 1674. The percentage working in agriculture had even dropped

slightly to 38%, or a maximum of 57% if we again assume that all registered day

labourers worked in this sector. The service sector had grown a little, and industry had

remained exactly the same. Remarkably, the much smaller town of Winkel shows a

similar occupational structure, which leads us to believe that these economies are

representative for a large part of the Holland countryside. With its totally different

structure Graft represents the other part of rural Holland: the highly (proto-)industrialised

47 This analysis is based on tax registers, and therefore our results concern people that are registered as a trader or shopkeeper without any further specification. 48 This categorization is derived from that of Mui and Mui. H. Mui and L. Mui, Shops and shopkeeping in eighteenth century England (London 1989). 49 Van den Heuvel, ‘Women, retailing and consumer changes’. 50 Regionaal Archief Leiden (RAL), 501A Stadsarchief van Leiden 1574-1816, Burgemeestersdagboeken, inv. 174. On the contrary, among the salt and soap vendors married women formed only 6%. 51 The status of Winkel as a town was a medieval relict, it therefore more resembled a village. It had for instance very low population numbers (660 in 1742) and an economic structure with a rather high share of agriculture (see Figure III).

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villages mainly concentrated to the North of Amsterdam, in the Zaanstreek (shipbuilding,

papermaking) and the adjacent Schermereiland (mainly textile industry).52

Figure III. Occupational structure of Winkel (1742), De Zijpe (1742) and Graft (1748)

For the countryside as well, we get a different picture outside Holland. From the second

half of the seventeenth century, the countryside in the east and the south of the

Republic, mainly Brabant, developed into important proto-industrial regions, mostly with

linen and wool industries. Although we have no comparable figures to illustrate this

development, we do know that in general, agriculture in these regions made way for a

proto-industrial wage earning proletariat, specializing in textile industry, sometimes (but

not necessarily!) combining their activities with small-scale farming.53

For De Veluwe, a considerable rural region in the centre of the Dutch Republic,

which also had some proto-industry, we have occupational data for 1749.54 This region

contained approximately 54,000 inhabitants, 14,000 of whom (c. 26%) lived in six small

to middle-sized towns. As a whole, its occupational structure consisted of 48% of the

population working in the primary, 28% in the secondary and 19% in the tertiary sector.

But if we only look at the rural areas in De Veluwe (only parishes and hamlets, without

the six towns), the structure looks totally different, with 69% in the primary, 23% in the

secondary and 8% in the tertiary sector. This probably is much more representative for

the occupational structure of the Dutch countryside in general than the rural areas in the

province of Holland. Figures from the same year on the countryside in the north-eastern

province of Friesland, another typical agrarian region with eleven small towns, confirm

this idea. In Friesland, the occupational structure in the countryside was quite similar to

52 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 299-303, 312-314 and 557-559. 53 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 557-559; Van Gurp, Brabantse stoffen. 54 Roessingh, ‘Bedrijf en beroep’.

Graft 1748

11%

64%

24%

1%

agriculture

industry

service

other

De Zijpe 1742

17%

26%

19%38%

Winkel 1742

21%

28%

14%

37%

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that of rural areas in De Veluwe, with 67% working in agriculture, 19% in industry, and

14% in services.55

At the end of the eighteenth century, this dual structure between Holland and the

rest still existed. In 1795, in the Republic as a whole 67% of the rural population worked

in agriculture (i.e. 40% of the total population). In the western provinces Holland and

Zeeland, these figures were a lot lower, with an average of 50 of the rural population (i.e.

28% of the entire population) in the primary sector.56 It is important to note that more

than a third of the rural population of the country lived in Holland and Zeeland.

Therefore, we must conclude that the modern structure of the Dutch labour market, with

a low average percentage of the population working in agriculture, even in the

countryside, was for the most part due to the strikingly divergent pattern of exactly these

two provinces.

Our data confirm that the image of overall economic stagnation and downturn in

the long eighteenth century has to be differentiated, both according to sector and to

region.57 Industrial decline was indeed a fact, but this mostly struck cities in Holland,

such as Leiden, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Apart from Leiden, these cities seem to

have specialized even more than before on activities in the tertiary sector. In an eastern

town like Zwolle, no real industrial decline and even growth occurred between 1670 and

1730. On the other hand, the southern town ’s-Hertogenbosch, which had known a long

period of (especially industrial) decline, experienced a short revival of industrial

production, of mainly new textile consumable goods. And also large parts of the eastern

and southern countryside, notably outside Holland, experienced a process of proto-

industrialization. And between 1740 and 1780, the service sector particularly developed

in the cities of Holland. In towns outside this province, the process of commercialization

and specialization of trade did not expand considerably before c. 1720 (’s-

Hertogenbosch), and 1750 (Zwolle). It is very probable that these innovations first

spread in the seventeenth century in Holland, which was indeed the centre of commerce

and trade. Only slowly, and with the gradual improvement of their economic situation, did

these changes reach the other cities and towns of the Dutch Republic.

A long road towards industrialization (1795-1900)

In 1795, the revolutionary French overpowered the Dutch, introducing heavy tax burdens

and the Continental System, which, in combination with the British trade blockades,

55 Faber, ‘De Noordelijke Nederlanden’, 205. 56 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 228. 57 See De Vries, De economische achteruitgang and De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy.

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resulted in a fierce economic crisis.58 After the defeat of France, a reunion with the

Belgian provinces followed, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established. As

opposed to the northern regions, industrialization had already greatly progressed in

these southern provinces. The Dutch King William’s policy was to maintain the existing

regional division of economic structures, with the commercial centre in the North, and

the industrial base of the nation in the South, which should be reinforced by the gains of

the colonies. Consequently a lot of investments were made in the southern industrial

areas. However, Belgium’s successful struggle for independence in 1830 meant that the

Dutch Kingdom lost these important provinces already 15 years after its foundation.

Even in 1850, the Dutch economy was clearly underdeveloped compared to other

European countries like Britain, Belgium, France and Prussia regarding steam power

capacity.59 Despite the Netherlands’ late industrialization, economic growth and

development did occur in the first half of the nineteenth century.60

However, Van Zanden and Van Riel refer to a ‘troubled recovery’ when they talk

about Dutch economic development in the first half of the nineteenth century. They

conclude that the country’s relatively modern structure of the labour force at the

beginning of the nineteenth century did not imply a comparably high level of GDP. As

opposed to Britain, the Dutch could not maintain their early modern economic growth

level exactly because the transition to ‘modern economic growth’ (a sustained increase

in per capita or per worker product) took place much later in the Netherlands. Here, the

process of transition towards an ‘industrial’ structure of the economy was only completed

after 1870.61 Indeed in most branches large-scale industrialization, and thus the raise of

productivity, only took place in the period 1850-1870.62 Between 1890 and 1910, the

process obtained such dynamic, that by this time we can speak of an industrial society

with modern industrial growth.63

For the beginning of the nineteenth century we were able to collect data from a

few towns outside Holland. The population register of ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1808 shows

that the town had about the same number of inhabitants as in 1775, but that far fewer

household heads were registered. This especially had consequences for the share of

registered women, who constituted 25% of all household heads in 1775, but only 16% in

1808. The town’s occupational structure in 1808 resembled 1742: the share of industry

had dropped again from 46% in 1775 to 37%, similar to the level in 1742, whereas the

58 De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 685. 59 Griffiths, Industrial retardation, 1-6. 60 Griffiths, Industrial retardation, 185-189; Michael Jansen, De industriële ontwikkeling in Nederland, 1800-1850 (Amsterdam 1999) 28; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Strictures of inheritance,163-164. 61 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Strictures of inheritance, 263-266. 62 J.A. de Jonge, De industrialisatie in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914 (Amsterdam, 1968) 241-242. 63 De Jonge, De industrialisatie, 245.

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service sector had grown to 56%, almost reaching the 1742 level again. Both in the

secondary and the tertiary sector, the share of women had dropped spectacularly. In

1775, almost 30% of all registered people in industry had been women, compared to just

10% in 1808. In the service sector as well, their share had declined from 25% to 21% in

the same period.64 This obviously means that economic downturn affected the labour

market participation of women more than it did men’s. In the town of Zwolle, we discern

a similar pattern when comparing the censuses of 1742 with 1812. The industry sector

declined here as well, albeit less severely, and the service sector grew somewhat.

Furthermore, the share of female labour participation dropped as well in this period, from

24.5% to 20% of all household heads with an occupation.

In 1810, Tilburg had grown from a large village (population c. 7,000 in 1665) with

a combination of agriculture and proto-industry into a small industrial town (population c.

10,000). The primary sector had dropped spectacularly from 57% to 16% of the

registered workforce. The tertiary sector instead had grown somewhat, but services

were still very underdeveloped (7%), considering the large number of inhabitants. The

secondary sector comprised 70% of all household heads with an occupation. This sector

was still very much focussed on the textile industry, which comprised three quarters of

all household heads in industry. Mechanization of the Tilburg textile industry had not yet

taken place. Although the town would be one of the first in the Netherlands to

industrialize, with the introduction of a steam driven spinning machine in 1827, this was

not yet the case in 1810.65 It was thus rather proto-industrial than modern industrial

growth that had caused these dramatic changes in the Tilburg occupational structure. In 1849, a national occupational census was executed, which also differentiated

between various regions and individual municipalities. For the country as a whole, the

division of the working population over the different economic sectors was remarkably

equal: 27% worked in agriculture; 26% in industry; 26% in service and 21% other. The

large category ‘other’ is caused by casual labour, which was undefined and is thus hard

to classify according to sector, although we may assume that a lot of them performed

labour in the primary sector.66 This presumption is strengthened because our

reconstruction of the occupational structure of two rural areas (Guelders and North-

Holland) leads to significantly higher shares of the category ‘other’ than in the individual

cities and towns (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, ’s-Hertogenbosch and Zwolle) we

have analysed for 1849.

64 Note that it only concerns household heads, which leaves out the considerable number of women working as maidservants in the tertiary sector. 65 Jansen, Industriële ontwikkeling; Van Gurp, Brabantse stoffen, 214. 66 De Jonge, De industrialisatie, 9-10.

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More in general, the occupational structures of respectively urban and of rural

areas show strikingly many more similarities in 1849 than in the previous century. This

probably can partly be explained by the more corresponding data we have: all local

registrations were carried out according to a similar format. Furthermore, not just heads

of households, but all working people were consequently listed, which not only leads to

better comparable datasets than in the eighteenth century, but also to an actual

reflection of the labour market. Despite these issues relating to source material, we do

think that with the establishment of a national state, the various regional labour markets

might have converged in the preceding decades. The replacement of the Republic’s

federal structure with a national reign by a strong-minded king, who was determined to

modernize the country’s economy, had played a large role in its economic unification in

the first decades of the nineteenth century. While in (many of) the rural areas the four different occupational categories are

more or less equal in size and in a way resemble the distribution of the Netherlands as a

whole in 1849, in towns two sectors (industry and service) are by far the largest. Despite

the alleged convergence, within the urban context (again) a clear differentiation between

more industrial cities and commercial cities is visible, which now reached beyond the

province of Holland. Amsterdam and Rotterdam form a good example of the latter. The

occupational structure of these two cities had become almost identical, probably due to

the rise of the Rotterdam harbour in this period. At the end of the nineteenth century, the

Rotterdam port would even outgrow that of Amsterdam.67 At the other end of the

spectrum, we find industrial towns as Leiden and ’s-Hertogenbosch. Although since

1749 the predominantly industrial economy of Leiden shifted towards one with a larger

service sector than before, its secondary sector was still substantial. ’s-Hertogenbosch

on the other hand, experienced growth in the sector of industry and transformed from a

more commercial town in 1808 to a town with an occupational structure that resembled

Leiden.

The most important development in the occupational structure in the Netherlands

in the nineteenth century, albeit in a different pace in the different localities, is the decline

of the category ‘Other’, mainly comprising casual labourers. We can discern different

patterns in rural and urban areas, and within the urban settings we can distinguish

between commercial, industrial and provincial towns. While in the countryside in 1849

the share of casual labourers varied from approximately 15 to 30%, in most towns by

that time it was smaller than one-tenth of the working population. Provincial towns knew

relatively the largest numbers (e.g. various towns in Guelders 15%, Zwolle 8%), while in

67 Paul van de Laar, Stad van formaat: geschiedenis van Rotterdam in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw (Zwolle 2000).

Page 22: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

Changing Occupational Structures? Van den Heuvel and Van Nederveen Meerkerk 22

large commercial centres as Amsterdam and Rotterdam only 2% of the labour force was

registered as such. In the end this results in a general decline of this particular group of

workers as is shown in Figure IV.

Figure IV. Occupational structure (all inhabitants) of the Netherlands, 1849 and 1899

Whereas in the Netherlands as a whole in 1849 still 21% was not specifically engaged in

a particular occupation or economic sector, fifty years later this has decreased

enormously, to 2%, a level that before was only reached by highly commercial cities in

the province of Holland. In the end, this results nationwide in an equal division between

the three sectors agriculture (31%), industry (33%) and service (34%).

First of all, this points to a transformed structure of the labour market, with indeed

only 31% of the working population in the primary sector. Although we have to bear in

mind that the Dutch economy was far less modern than industrialized countries as

England (6%) and Germany (18%) at the time,68 its share of the primary sector in GDP

was under the European average around 1900.69 Secondly, we can conclude that by

1899, the flexible character of the traditional industry had been replaced by a far more

fixed, time-disciplined, factory proletariat.

Conclusion

The analysis of occupational data from the Netherlands over more than three centuries

showed that in the course of time, the different parts in the Netherlands grew closer and

closer and became economically more integrated. It was precisely this integration that

had important consequences for the distribution of people over the different economic

sectors.

68 Maxine Berg, The Age of Manufactures (1700-1820) (London, 1985) 44. 69 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Strictures of Inheritance, 265.

Netherlands, 1849

27%

26%

26%

21%

Netherlands, 1899

31%

33%

34%

2% agriculture

industry

service

other

Page 23: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

Changing Occupational Structures? Van den Heuvel and Van Nederveen Meerkerk 23

In the period that became known as the Dutch Golden Age, the province of

Holland had a highly specialized economic structure. This applied not only to towns, but

also to rural areas, where in typical agrarian polders a relatively large share of the

registered population worked as agrarian wage labourers. During the seventeenth

century, the smaller Holland towns grew into an urban system of on the one hand more

commercial and on the other more industrial urban centres that complemented each

other. In this way, Holland further diverged from the other parts in the country, where –

as the example of Tilburg (1665) has shown – the local economy was still much more

oriented on agriculture. Unfortunately, we do not have data at our disposal for other

parts of the country in this specific period, but censuses of the late seventeenth-century

towns as ’s-Hertogenbosch and Zwolle and of eighteenth-century rural areas as De

Veluwe indicates that in the Golden Age Holland was the exception and not the rule,

even within the Dutch Republic. That Holland nevertheless has determined the general

picture, is obvious, because throughout the early modern period, almost 50% of the

population lived in this province.70

Looking at occupational data of various areas furthermore made clear that the

real economic crisis in the ‘long eighteenth century’ was bound to certain localities and

sectors. It especially occurred in the sector of industry in the province of Holland after

1670. For a large part, this was due to the shift of important export industries to rural

areas outside Holland, to be more precise to the eastern and southern provinces of the

Republic. The service sector however was able to maintain itself and even grow in this

period, especially in already important commercial and maritime centres such as

Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The image of economic depression has to be nuanced by

another, more qualitative shift in the occupational structure. From probably the mid-

seventeenth century onwards, a process of commercialization and ongoing

specialization in the retailing branch took place which spread from cities in Holland in the

17th century (Rotterdam and Leiden) via commercial towns in the other provinces (as ’s-

Hertogenbosch) at the start of the 18th century to other provincial towns (for example

Zwolle) where a real transition did not take place before 1800.

This all leads to the conclusion that there was a highly divergent pattern of

development within the Dutch Republic, in which the economic crisis was very much

concentrated on industry in the Holland cities and towns, and did not so much affect the

service sector. Outside the province of Holland, some parts of the countryside

blossomed because of their proto-industrialization. Furthermore, towns outside Holland

70 1622: 45%; 1780: 46%; 1795: 44% of the total Dutch population lived in Holland. De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern economy, 50-52. In 1849, this percentage had declined to 34%. CBS, Volkstelling 1849.

Page 24: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

Changing Occupational Structures? Van den Heuvel and Van Nederveen Meerkerk 24

did not suffer so much and sometimes even experienced industrial growth besides the

already mentioned changes in the commercial sector (Zwolle c. 1670-1750; ’s-

Hertogenbosch c. 1750-1780).

Moreover, we have seen that the ‘modern’ occupational structure of the Dutch

Republic, with low percentages working in the primary sector, mainly applied to Holland.

The rest of the country had large parts of the rural population working in agriculture,

comparable to other West-European economies at the time, with the possible exception

of England, where agriculture only comprised 40% of the national product in 1688.71

Only from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, in rural areas outside the

province of Holland, the share of the agricultural labour force dropped.

The modernity and economic growth of Holland remained confined to the service

sector, also after 1800. Not surprisingly, the rural industrial areas outside Holland, such

as Brabant and Twente, were the first to witness large-scale mechanization, and in an

international perspective, even they were late to industrialize. In other words, the

pioneering role Holland had had during its Golden Age might have hindered long-term

economic development for the country as a whole. Probably, the federal political

structure of the Republic, rendering large power to the (ever more service-oriented)

Holland cities, prevented this course of development from changing radically. It is

probably also for this reason that a lot of local occupational reconstructions hardly show

any shocking fluctuations between c. 1750 and 1850.

Nevertheless, in 1849, we already see much more converging patterns between

regions within and outside of Holland. In broad lines, a more ‘national’ rather than a

provincial division of labour had occurred, in which (besides the countryside) we can

discern two types of cities, ‘service-oriented’ and ‘industrial-based’ (albeit mostly

traditional, non-mechanized industries). This process seems to have started much

earlier, as in the eighteenth century the various towns under study more and more

resembled each other in the structure of the labour market.

At the end of the nineteenth century, however, a total transformation of the Dutch

occupational structure had taken place. This process of alteration is probably best

illustrated by the decline of the category ‘other’. Whereas this category in most of the

pre-industrial society (thus up to 1850) contained mainly both agrarian day labourers and

wage labourers in industry, these workers had almost disappeared around 1900. With

this, the Dutch economy changed profoundly and more-and-more started to catch up

with neighbouring countries as Germany and England that already underwent such

changes.

71 Berg, Age of Manufactures, 44.

Page 25: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

App

endi

x

App

endi

x A

– A

n ov

ervi

ew o

f the

ana

lyse

d so

urce

s (fo

r the

exa

ct re

fere

nces

, see

Bod

y Te

xt, F

ootn

ote

6)

R

egio

n

Pe

riod

Prov

ince

of H

olla

nd

So

uthe

rn p

rovi

nces

Ea

ster

n pr

ovin

ces

Net

herla

nds

tota

l

Am

ster

dam

Le

iden

R

otte

rdam

C

ount

rysi

de

Den

Bos

ch

Cou

ntry

side

Zw

olle

C

ount

rysi

de

1580

-167

5 C

apita

le im

posi

tie 1

585

(tax)

Vo

lkst

ellin

g 15

81

(all

hh)

Klei

n Fa

mili

egel

d 16

74

(tax)

D

e Zi

jpe,

Kle

in

Fam

ilieg

eld

1674

(tax

)

Tilb

urg

Kapi

tale

sch

attin

g 16

65 (a

ll hh

)

30

,000

inh.

1,

493

occ.

(5%

) 12

,170

inh.

1,

883

occ.

(15,

5%)

40,0

00 in

h.

4,54

2 oc

c. (1

1%)

2,41

2 in

h.

528

occ.

(22%

)

c. 7

,000

inh.

15

59 o

cc. (

22%

)

Klei

n Fa

mili

egel

d 16

74 (t

ax)

G

raft,

Zou

t-en

Zee

pgel

d 16

80 (e

xcis

e ta

x)

62,0

00 in

h./2

,490

oc

c. (4

%)

c.

3,0

00 in

h.

72 o

cc. (

2,5%

)

1675

-179

5 Pe

rson

ele

Quo

tisat

ie 1

742

(tax)

H

oofd

geld

174

9 (a

ll hh

) Pe

rson

ele

Quo

tisat

ie

1742

(tax

) W

inke

l, Pe

rson

ele

Quo

tisat

ie 1

742

(tax)

Bi

ljette

ring

1742

(a

ll hh

)

Volk

stel

ling

1712

(a

ll hh

) Ve

luw

e 17

49

c.

220

.000

inh.

11

,234

occ

. (5%

) 37

238

inh.

8,

904

occ.

(24%

) 56

.000

inh.

26

73 o

cc. (

5%)

660

inh.

19

0 oc

c. (2

9%)

12,5

00 in

h.

1,91

0 oc

c. (1

5%)

c.

10,

000

inh.

1,

715

occ.

(17%

)inh.

54,

000

8,68

3 oc

c. (1

6%)

De

Zijp

e, P

erso

nele

Q

uotis

atie

174

2 (ta

x)

Blok

boek

en 1

775

(a

ll hh

)

Volk

stel

ling

1742

(a

ll hh

)

2,15

8 in

h.

518

occ.

(24%

) 14

,049

inh.

2,

797

occ.

(20%

)

12,0

00 in

h.

3,11

5 oc

c. (2

6%)

Gra

ft, P

erso

nele

Q

uotis

atie

174

8 (ta

x)

c. 1

,500

inh.

34

4 oc

c. (2

3%)

1795

-190

0 Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

49

(all

inh.

) Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

49

(all

inh.

) Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

49

(all

inh.

) G

raft,

Pat

entre

gist

ers

1807

Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

08

(all

hh)

Tilb

urg

Volk

stel

ling

1810

(a

ll in

h.)

Volk

stel

ling

1812

(a

ll hh

)

22

4,03

5 in

h.

71,8

27 o

cc. (

32%

) 35

,895

inh.

14

,817

occ

. (41

%)

90,0

73 in

h.

32,2

86 o

cc. (

36%

) 1,

090

inh.

39

7 oc

c. (3

6%)

13,9

00 in

h.

1,80

0 oc

c. (1

3%)

9,68

0 in

h.

2,45

7 oc

c. (2

5%)

6,22

1 in

h.

1,22

7 oc

c (2

0%)

De

Zijp

e, P

aten

tregi

ster

s 18

07

Volk

stel

ling

1849

(a

ll in

h.)

Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

49

(all

inh.

) G

ueld

ers

Volk

stel

ling

1849

(all

inh.

) Vo

lkst

ellin

g 18

49

(all

inh.

)

???

inh.

55

1 oc

c.

21,7

03 in

h.

9,24

9 oc

c. (4

3%)

18

,168

inh.

6,

514

occ.

(36%

)271,

077

inh.

11

1,83

0 oc

c. (4

1%)

3,05

6,87

9 in

h.

1,25

8,27

2 oc

c. (4

1%)

Volk

stel

ling

coun

trysi

de

NH

184

9 (a

ll in

h.)

Bero

epen

telli

ng 1

899

(all

inh.

)

174,

958

inh.

68

,364

occ

. (39

%)

5,10

4,13

7 in

h.

1,92

3,58

4 oc

c. (3

8%)

[inh.

= in

habi

tant

s; o

cc. =

occ

upat

iona

l rec

ords

; hh

= ho

useh

old

head

s]

Page 26: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

App

endi

x A

ppen

dix

B –

Cla

ssifi

catio

n of

occ

upat

ions

Fo

r thi

s pa

per,

we

have

follo

wed

the

cate

goriz

atio

n of

occ

upat

ions

in th

e po

pula

tion

regi

ster

of 1

889,

72 w

hich

in th

e N

ethe

rland

s ha

s be

en u

sed

by m

ost h

isto

rians

who

ana

lyse

d th

e pr

e-in

dust

rial l

abou

r mar

ket

so fa

r.73 T

o a

larg

e ex

tent

, our

cla

ssifi

catio

n re

sem

bles

the

PS

T sy

stem

, alth

ough

it is

less

det

aile

d on

the

leve

l of t

he o

ccup

atio

ns. F

or th

e pu

rpos

e of

the

aggr

egat

e an

alys

is w

e ha

ve m

ade,

we

do h

owev

er th

ink

it is

mor

e or

less

com

para

ble

to P

ST. B

elow

you

will

find

our

cla

ssifi

catio

n, in

dica

ting

corr

espo

nden

ce w

ith P

ST. C

ompa

red

to th

e 18

89 c

lass

ifica

tion,

we

have

cha

nged

som

e ca

tego

ries

whi

ch w

e th

ough

t bet

ter

suite

d ou

r pur

pose

. All

mod

ifica

tions

are

acc

ount

ed fo

r in

the

refe

renc

es.

Se

ctor

O

ccup

atio

nal C

lass

O

ccup

atio

n (e

xam

ples

) 1.

ear

then

war

e/st

one/

glas

s pr

oduc

tion

Ston

ecut

ter,

porc

elai

n m

aker

, tile

mak

er

2. b

ook/

pape

r prin

ting

Prin

ter,

typo

grap

her

3. c

onst

ruct

ion

Car

pent

er, m

ason

, pai

nter

, bric

klay

er

4. c

hem

ical

indu

stry

C

hem

ist,

gunp

owde

r mak

er, p

igm

ent m

aker

5.

woo

d w

orki

ng

Cha

ir m

aker

, cab

inet

mak

er, b

rush

mak

er, b

utto

n m

aker

6.

gar

men

t ind

ustry

Ta

ilor,

seam

stre

ss, h

at m

aker

, wig

mak

er

7. a

rt pr

oduc

tion

Artis

t, sc

ulpt

or, p

aint

er, d

raw

er

8. le

athe

r wor

king

Sa

ddle

r, ta

nner

, cha

moi

s m

aker

10

. met

al w

orki

ng

Blac

ksm

ith, p

in m

aker

, gol

dsm

ith, l

ocks

mith

11

. pap

er m

akin

g

Parc

hmen

t mak

er, p

aper

mak

er

12. s

hipb

uild

ing

& w

agon

mak

ing

Sh

ipbu

ilder

, shi

p ca

rpen

ter,

cartw

right

13

. ins

trum

ent m

akin

g C

lock

mak

er, w

atch

mak

er, s

pect

acle

mak

er

14. t

extil

e in

dust

ry

Spin

ner,

wea

ver,

dyer

, she

arer

, em

broi

dere

r, kn

itter

15

. fat

, oil

& ca

ndle

pro

duct

ion

Cha

ndle

r, oi

l pre

sser

, oil

refin

er, c

ooke

r

I. In

dust

ry &

Cra

fts

(PST

: sec

onda

ry s

ecto

r)

16. f

ood

and

beve

rage

pro

duct

ion

Ba

ker,

butc

her,

brew

er, g

rain

mill

er, d

istil

ler

17. a

gric

ultu

re

Farm

er, g

arde

ner,

cow

milk

er, h

ay c

utte

r 18

. fis

hing

Fi

sher

, her

ring

fishe

r II.

Agr

icul

ture

& F

ishi

ng

(PST

: prim

ary

sect

or)

9. e

xtra

ctin

g m

iner

als/

peat

etc

.74

Peat

dig

ger,

min

er

19.,

23.,

24. t

rade

75

Ret

aile

r, br

oker

, fac

tor

20a.

tran

spor

t Sa

ilor,

carte

r, pe

at c

arrie

r 20

b. in

n-ke

epin

g an

d lo

dgin

g76

Innk

eepe

r, co

ffeeh

ouse

-kee

per,

barte

nder

21

. fin

anci

al s

ervi

ce

Bank

er, c

ashi

er, p

awnb

roke

r 22

. ins

uran

ce

Insu

rer,

com

mis

sion

er

III. E

cono

mic

ser

vice

s (P

ST: t

ertia

ry s

ecto

r)

35b.

rent

iers

77

Ren

tier,

land

hold

er

25. f

ree

trade

s M

edic

al d

octo

r, no

tary

, sol

icito

r, m

idw

ife, h

air c

utte

r78

26. e

duca

tion

Teac

her,

univ

ersi

ty p

rofe

ssor

, han

dicr

aft i

nstru

ctor

27

. car

e O

rpha

nage

sta

ff, h

ospi

tal p

erso

nnel

, nur

se

28. h

ouse

hold

ser

vice

Se

rvan

t, ho

usek

eepe

r, w

ashw

oman

79, c

ook80

, jan

itor

30a.

gov

ernm

ent s

ervi

ce

(‘nat

iona

l’ le

vel)

tax

colle

ctor

, exc

ise

offic

er, d

eput

y of

sta

te

30b.

mili

tary

ser

vice

81

Offi

cers

, sol

dier

s, fl

ag-b

eare

rs

31.-3

3. p

rovi

ncia

l, ci

ty a

nd w

ater

scha

p se

rvic

e D

eput

y, p

rovi

ncia

l or c

ity ta

x co

llect

or, m

ayor

, bai

liff,

anno

unce

r 34

a. re

ligio

us s

ervi

ce

Min

iste

r, pr

iest

, nun

IV. N

on-e

cono

mic

ser

vice

s (P

ST: t

ertia

ry s

ecto

r)

34b.

fune

ral s

ervi

ce82

U

nder

take

r, m

ortic

ian,

fune

ral d

irect

or

V. O

ther

29

. uns

peci

fied

labo

urer

s83

Day

labo

urer

s, c

asua

l lab

oure

rs

72 U

itkom

sten

der

ber

oeps

telli

ng in

het

Kon

inkr

ijk d

er N

eder

land

en o

p de

n ee

n-en

-der

tigst

en D

ecem

ber 1

889.

See

als

o: h

ttp://

ww

w.v

olks

telli

ngen

.nl/n

l/ 73

See

e.g

.: R

oess

ingh

, ‘Be

roep

en

bedr

ijf’,

258-

259;

Dae

lem

ans,

‘Lei

den

1581

’; D

iede

riks,

‘Ber

oeps

stru

ctuu

r’, 6

5-66

; P.H

.A.M

. Abe

ls, N

ieuw

en

onge

zien

. Ker

k en

sam

enle

ving

in d

e cl

assi

s D

elft

en D

elfla

nd

1572

-162

1 (D

elft

1994

); H

ilde

van

Wijn

gaar

den,

Zor

g vo

or d

e ko

st. A

rmen

zorg

, arb

eid

en o

nder

linge

hul

p in

Zw

olle

165

0-17

00 (A

mst

erda

m, 2

000)

esp

. 265

-275

; Ing

rid v

an d

er V

lis, L

even

in a

rmoe

de. D

elfts

e be

deel

den

in d

e ze

vent

iend

e ee

uw (A

mst

erda

m, 2

001)

esp

. 372

-379

; Aria

dne

Schm

idt,

Ove

rleve

n na

de

dood

. Wed

uwen

in L

eide

n in

de

Gou

den

Eeu

w (A

mst

erda

m, 2

001)

esp

. 123

and

125

.

74 T

he o

rigin

al c

lass

ifica

tion

plac

es th

is u

nder

indu

stry

, but

follo

win

g P

ST, w

e ch

ose

to c

lass

ify it

in th

e pr

imar

y se

ctor

. 75

Act

ually

3 s

epar

ate

cate

gorie

s: 1

9. re

tail

trade

and

who

lesa

le, 2

3. d

istri

butiv

e tra

de, a

nd 2

4. a

uxili

ary

com

pani

es.

76

Und

er tr

ansp

ort i

n th

e or

igin

al c

lass

ifica

tion.

77

As

mot

ivat

ed a

bove

, bec

ause

of t

heir

activ

e ro

le in

trad

e, w

e ha

ve c

hose

n to

put

rent

iers

in th

e se

rvic

e se

ctor

inst

ead

of in

the

cate

gory

‘oth

er’ a

s in

the

orig

inal

cla

ssifi

catio

n.

78 T

he o

rigin

al p

uts

barb

ers

and

hair

cutte

rs u

nder

gar

men

t pro

duct

ion,

but

we

cons

ider

it to

be

a se

rvic

e ra

ther

than

an

indu

stry

. 79

The

orig

inal

put

s w

ashw

omen

und

er g

arm

ent p

rodu

ctio

n, b

ut w

e co

nsid

er it

to b

e a

serv

ice

rath

er th

an a

n in

dust

ry.

80 T

he o

rigin

al p

uts

cook

s un

der f

ood

prod

uctio

n, b

ut w

e co

nsid

er it

to b

e fo

od p

repa

ring,

and

thus

a s

ervi

ce ra

ther

than

an

indu

stry

. 81

The

orig

inal

put

s m

ilita

ry s

ervi

ce u

nder

gov

ernm

ent o

ffici

als,

we

chos

e to

sep

arat

e th

e tw

o, b

ecau

se s

ome

tow

ns w

ere

front

ier t

owns

and

had

an

over

-rep

rese

ntat

ion

of m

ilita

ry s

taff.

82

The

orig

inal

put

s fu

nera

l ser

vice

und

er re

ligio

us s

ervi

ce, b

ut th

ere

wer

e al

so p

ublic

and

gui

ld-r

elat

ed fu

nera

l ser

vice

s, s

o w

e de

cide

d to

mak

e a

sepa

rate

cat

egor

y.

83 T

he o

rigin

al p

lace

s un

spec

ified

labo

urer

s un

der s

ocia

l ser

vice

s, b

ut s

ince

they

may

hav

e be

en in

dust

rial o

r agr

icul

tura

l cas

ual l

abou

rers

, we

chos

e no

t to

iden

tify

them

.

Page 27: Changing occupational structures? The Dutch labour market, c. 1580

Appendix

Appendix C – Specialization of traders Table 2. Specialization of traders selling consumable household goods Leiden 1674 Zwolle 1742 ’s-Hertogenbosch 1742 Leiden 1749 N = 185 N = 52 N = 175 N = 457 Grocers 31,9% 13,5% 25,1% 19,9% Dealers in greasy goods; Tallow-chandlers 25,9% 3,8% 10,9% 0,2% Wine and brandy merchants 15,7% 32,7% 22,3% 20,1% Meat sellers 10,8% 1,9% 5,7% 1,5% Fishmongers 5,9% 7,7% 8,6% 3,9% Fruiterers 3,2% 12,9% Cheesemongers 2,2% 10,9% 2,2% Vegetable sellers 2,2% 15,4% 0,6% 1,3% Corn sellers 1,6% 1,7% 0,2% Salt vendors 0,5% 1,1% 0,2% Bread & cake sellers 1,8% Fresh food sellers 0,2% Poultry vendors 7,7% 0,7% Beer sellers 2,6% Coffee and tea dealers 7,7% 12,6% 20,1% Milk sellers 0,6% 12,0% Other 9,6% Table 3. Specialization of traders selling wearing apparel Leiden 1674 Zwolle 1742 ’s-Hertogenbosch 1742 Leiden 1749 N = 99 N = 35 N = 110 N = 193 Draper 46,5% 40,0% 41,8% 36,3% Haberdasher 24,2% 8,6% 13,6% 16,6% Hosier 18,2% 20,0% 10,9% 6,7% Ready made clothing 9,1% 18,2% 1,0% Milliner; Hatter 1,0% 8,6% 3,6% 3,6% Hairseller 1,0% 0,5% Old clothes selles 22,9% 10,0% 32,1% Leather seller 0,9% 2,1% Shoeseller 0,9% 0,5% Other 0,5%