ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of the steam engine, which produced wide and long-lasting economic growth from the 19th century to the early 20th century, on the wages of high-skilled seamen in the Swedish merchant maritime shipping industry. The analysis focuses on the years 1869–1914, which was a transition period during which traditional sailing ships were replaced by steam-powered vessels. The study shows that all high-skilled occupations received wage gains under steam technology. The evidence on wage polarization amongst the high-skill occupations remains subtle, although there is certain evidence that wage premiums vary by occupation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The total number of recruitments in the data is ca. 650,000. The number of individual sailors is smaller, as the same men could be recruited several times; see Ojala, Pehkonen, and Eloranta (Citation2016).
2 Appendix A provides a glimpse of the data: share of steam vessels by tonnage from 1869 to 1914 () and wages of high-skill occupations for the early (1869–1889) and late periods (1890–1914) of technological adaptation ().
3 Due to the small size of the sample, we do not estimate specifications for switchers by occupations and separate periods.