Speaker: LT Zhang
Title: Out of Time but Not Out of Work: Technological Displacement and Occupational Mobility among late 19th Century Watchmakers
Abstract: New technologies often displace incumbent workers. Most evidence focuses on workers performing relatively narrow tasks and finds that displacement leads to higher unemployment and worse subsequent outcomes. This study shows that such patterns need not hold more generally. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, watch factories displaced traditional artisanal watchmakers. Using hand-collected data on watch companies linked to U.S. historical census records, we find that displaced watchmakers did not experience higher unemployment or occupational downgrading. Instead, many moved into related crafts such as jewelry, engraving, and machining. The findings suggest that technological change can destroy an occupation without imposing large penalties on workers whose skills have nearby alternative uses.
Maggie Hendrix
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