The overall pattern
Table 3.1 summarizes the foregoing observations in a different manner. Each entry in the table indicates an average annual rate of change in the real wage level calculated from the ‘slope' of a regression line fitted for the period specified.
According to figures for the Kinai (printed in italics), agricultural labourers' real wages increased faster than did carpenters' during the first phase of 1727—1820, while the next phase, 1820—67, saw an opposite phenomenon. The first observation refers to rural and the second to urban trends. Yet since the Kinai had developed well-integrated regional labour markets by the late eighteenth century, both can be linked together so as to represent longer-run trends over the entire 1727—1867 period.However, it is worth noting that the rate at which real wages declined was slower in the Kanto town of Choshi than in the Kinai, and that the contrast becomes more
Table 3.1 Rates of change in real wages for skilled and unskilled occupations, 1727—1894 (in % per annum)
| Rural | Urban | |||
| Skilled/semi-skilled | Unskilled | Skilled | Unskilled | |
| 1727-1820 | 0.2 | 0.7 | — | — |
| 1820-67 | -1.1 | -0.2a | bgcolor=white>-2.1||
| (1840-67) | (-1.6) | — | (-2.5) | (-5.0) |
| 1867-94 | 4.5 | — | 1.1 | — |
Notes: The rates of change are ‘slopes’ of least-square regression lines calculated from the observations in the period specified.
The slopes are all statistically significant except the one with‘ The figures in italic type are for Kinai rates. The rural skilled and unskilled are for carpenters and agricultural day labourers in Kami- Kawarabayashi while the urban skilled is for carpenters in Osaka and the urban unskilled for day labourers in Kyoto. The figures in upright type are for Kanto rates. The rural skilled is for soy-sauce makers in Choshi and the urban skilled for building craftsmen in Edo/Tokyo. Source: Appendix Tables 3.A1-3.A2.
pronounced if the inflationary period of 1840—67 is singled out. Since the pace of decline was also slower in Edo, this should be taken to imply that the Kinai rates overstated the extent to which real wages declined in the 1820—67 phase.
What is not obvious from Table 3.1 is whether real wages for the rural unskilled lagged behind the Choshi semi-skilled workers. Unfortunately, there are no records for villages around Choshi of quality comparable to the Kami- Kawarabayashi wage data. It is documented that in a village near Edo ‘rice wages’ for farm servants decreased, but in a rather inconclusive manner since the Choshi series reflected the weighted average wages of both skilled and less-skilled workers rather than skilled only (Saito 1998: 31).3 However, the Choshi case draws our attention to an important aspect of the question. According to evidence unearthed by Suzuki (1990) and summarized in Saito (1998: 38), allowances for food and bonus payments were on the increase over the period concerned. The amount of those extra payments fluctuated, but the trend was for them to increase more than compensating for the losses caused by high prices. In the years before 1830 the standard yearly pay was on average 5.3 ryo and the total earnings with all extra payments included amounted to 12 ryo in 1840—4 prices, but by the 1845—71 period the average standard pay declined to 3.4 ryo in real terms, whereas the total amount the soy-sauce makers received increased to 15.6 ryo. This particular instance may not have been typical.
However, if such extra allowances were not uncommon for other skilled workers at the time of high prices but inaccessible to the unskilled who were employed on a day-to-day basis, then it follows that the actual occupational differentials measured by total wage earnings were somewhat greater than the recorded wage rates implied. Thus, it is likely that in the developing Kanto economy too, wage differentials did widen as the level of real wages slumped until about 1870. After that, the trend was reversed and, as Table 3.1 shows, wage growth in the country town was much stronger than in the capital city of Tokyo.Table 3.2 Rates of change in real wages for agricultural and non-agricultural occupations in eastern Japan, 1860—80 (in % per annum)
| Male | Female | |||
| Agricultural | Craft | Agricultural | Silk reeling | |
| 1860-70 | -4.4 | -3.5 | -3.9 | -3.4 |
| 1870-80 | 4.9 | 3.7 | 5.0 | 3.8 |
Notes: Rates are deflated by the Edo/Tokyo cost-of-living index series (three-year averages). Calculation is based on the arithmetic means of reported wage rates. The number of provinces reporting rates varied from occupation to occupation as well as from benchmark year to year. Male: agricultural, 21, 21, and 28; craft, 14, 15, and 23. Female: agricultural, 21, 21, and 27; silk reeling, 12, 13, and 19.
Source: Calculated from Saito (1998: 43, 190).
It is possible to substantiate these points with more comprehensive evidence on wage changes in eastern Japan, though for the shorter period of 1860—80. Statistics compiled by the new Meiji government's agricultural bureau in 1881 show rural wage levels for the benchmark years of 1860, 1870, and 1880, by sex and occupation as well as by province.
It seems that the way in which past information was collected was much the same as for the Edo/Tokyo builders' wages and, probably for that reason, the number of provinces reporting evidence for non-agricultural occupations tended to be fewer in earlier years, especially in 1860. However, the information on agricultural day labourers, both male and female, craftsmen, and female reelers, is considered reasonably usable. The silk industry was, thanks to strong overseas demands for Japanese raw silk, booming in that period and reeling was a job requiring women's dexterity and hand skills. Thus, reeling wages may be regarded as for skilled female labour just as craftsmen's are for male labour. By using the same Edo/Tokyo cost-of-living indices as for the Choshi series, therefore, annual rates of change in real wages are calculated for these four cases in rural eastern Japan.The results are set out in Table 3.2. All the four columns confirm that the downward trend was reversed in the 1870s. More importantly, in the 1860s, when the real wage level was in sharp decline, the real wage of unskilled farm workers declined even more sharply, whereas in the next decade when strong wage growth occurred it was their wages that grew fastest. This relationship between trends in the level and in differentials holds for both male and female workers. This relationship was the usual pattern during the age of rural development in Japan.
3.