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Everything in Common . . . But the
Language? Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since
1850
April 2006
Joseph P. Ferrie Department of Economics and
Institute for Policy Research Northwestern
University and NBER
Jason Long Department of Economics Colby
College and University of Oxford
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Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English,
and was an excellent example of the fact that
we have really everything in common with
America nowadays, except, of course,
language. Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost
1891
A century later, a modern Wilde could say much
the same Britain and the U.S. have much if not
everything in common legal and political
heritage economic system culture technology and
contra Wilde language
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But two things they do not share are 1. their
belief in the prospects for economic and social
mobility (either within or across
generations) and 2. their attitudes toward an
active state that taxes from the successful and
transfers to the unsuccessful (though
this difference has narrowed since the
1980s) The U.S. also differs from a number of
otherwise similar countries (France, Germany,
Canada) in these respects. What are the origins
of these differences?
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II. Whats different now?

• Three things have made linkage easier in just the
  last two years
• Better indexes to and availability of US/British
  censuses from 1850-1901
• Complete transcription of 1880/81 censuses
• Public use samples from IPUMS for US, 1850-70 and
  1900-20 for Britain for 1851

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Linked Census Data Britain 1851 to 1881

• 2 Sample of 1851 Census

168,130 men living in England and Wales
Entire 1881 Census of England and Wales
All 12,640,000 men in the census
? New Dataset
28,474 men observed in 1851 and 1881
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Match Criteria

• First, last name phonetic match (e.g.
  John/Jon Aitken/Aitkin). Middle initial
  match.
• Reported Age1881 (Reported Age1851 30) ?
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• Birth county and parish match.
• Approx 16,000 parishes in England and Wales
• Size Median 405, Mean 1,842
• High-resolution information
• No duplicate matches.
• No missing information.

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Example John Jowitt
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To comprehensively compare mobility between two
tables

• Use single metric to summarize mobility
• Can adjust the marginal frequencies in the tables
  being compared to a common margin. This accounts
  for different occupational structures

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Father Skilled/ Son White
Collar Farmer Semi Unskilled White
Collar X X X
X Farmer X X X
X Skilled/Semi X X X
X Unskilled X X X
X
(Farm-Farm)/(Farm-Unsk)/(Unsk-Farm)/(Unsk-Unsk)
11.6
(WhCol-WhCol)/(WhCol-Unsk)/(Unsk-Whcol)/(Unsk-U
nsk) 9.3
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In 1870, 1890 England lags behind US
Catches up in the 20th century

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