Balancing Economic Stress: The Role of Rural-Urban Migration in 19th Century East Belgium

George Alter, University of Michigan
Michel Oris, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (csic)

Nineteenth-century East Belgium was characterized by interrelated histories of change and resistance, modernization and conservatism. Our contribution to the Eurasia Project focused on two rural areas following divergent paths, the Ardennes and the Pays de Herve. We considered only implicitly the city located between them, Verviers, which was one of the cradles of the industrial revolution in continental Europe. However, we have constructed a new database covering the urban population that allows us to present an integrated view of rural-urban demographic interactions during the entire 19th century. We can now add an urban perspective to our previous analyses of demographic responses to economic stress in the Ardennes and the Pays de Herve. Annual data are available on the real wages of industrial workers and the level of industrial production in Verviers, and we have samples of individuals and households from the population registers of Verviers. We will test the hypothesis that inhabitants of the town were especially vulnerable during the first phase of the industrial revolution (1806-1846), characterized by low wages, terrible working and housing conditions, and a welfare system disrupted by rapid population growth. In comparison, individuals and families were less exposed to crises in the countryside, especially in the Ardennes. After the disasters of the 1840s, the situation from 1850 to 1873 was reversed with significant improvements in Verviers and growing migration from the villages to the town. Migration of rural workers to urban factories reduced population pressure and sensitivity to economic stress in the countryside. The end of the 19th century initiates a long economic decline in the region as a whole. Across those three historical periods, we analyze the evolving relationships between demographic behaviors and economic stress with a focus on migrations and migrants.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 158. Inequality, Economic Stress, and Demographic Behavior: Sub-Session 1. Balancing Economic Stress in the Pre-Modern World.