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Fatherless and Friendless: Factors Influencing the Flow of English Emigrant Servants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Farley Grubb
Farley Grubb
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of economics at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716.
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Abstract

The incidence of fatherlessness among English emigrant servants was measured using contracts recorded in London between 1682 and 1686. This incidence was relatively high and systematically related to the servant's age, gender, county of origin, occupation, and father's occupation. Many emigrant servants were youths who had lost their fathers and lacked alternative support in England. Fatherlessness helps explain why the short-run supply of emigrant servants was relatively inelastic, and why some unskilled servants continued to migrate to America in spite of competition from slave labor.

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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 85 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

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