Adam Smith Business School

Professor Gregory Clark, University of Southern Denmark, Danish Institute for Advanced Study

"Assortative Mating and the Industrial Revolution: England, 1754-2021"
Wednesday, 19 March 2025. 15:00-16:30
Room 141A, Adam Smith Business School Building

Abstract

Using a new database of 1.7 million marriage records for England 1837-2021 we estimate assortment by occupational status in marriage, and the intergenerational correlation of occupational status. We find the underlying correlations of status groom-bride, and father-son, are remarkably high: 0.8 and 0.9 respectively. These correlations are unchanged 1837-2021. There is evidence this strong matching extends back to at least 1754. Even before formal education and occupations for women, grooms and brides matched tightly on educational and occupational abilities. We show further that women contributed as much as men to important child outcomes. This implies strong marital sorting substantially increased the variance of social abilities in England. Pre-industrial marital systems typically involved much less marital sorting. Thus the development of assortative marriage may play a role in the location and timing of the Industrial Revolution, through its effect on the supply of those with upper-tail abilities.

Bio

Gregory Clark is Distinguished Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of California, Davis, Danish National Research Foundation Professor, University of Southern Denmark, and Chair, Danish Institute for Advanced Study. He has published two books on long-run growth and the nature of social mobility with Princeton University Press: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (2007), and The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (2014). He has just completed a book manuscript for Princeton on the role of genetics in social life in England 1600-2025. The key argument of this new work is summarized in a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "The inheritance of social status: England, 1600 to 2022" (Clark, 2023).

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First published: 9 February 2025