The decline of apprenticeship in North America: Evidence from Montreal

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Toronto
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 627-664
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; manufacturing censuses; ECONOMIC-ANALYSIS; MARKET; LABOR; industrialization; immigrants; hypothesis; TRANSITION; EFFICIENCY

摘要

Apprenticeship was, at one time, the foremost means of acquiring skill in North America and Europe. Today it is rare in North America for reasons that are not well understood. I draw on the population of apprentice: contracts signed in Montreal over a 50-year period to pinpoint the start of the decline and explore its origins. I find that the decline began around 1815. During its first phase masters responded to greater difficulties in contract enforcement. A direct effect of the rise of larger establishments on the market for apprentices appears later, in the late 1820s and 1830s.