On 11 November, the Department of Economics hosted Professor Philipp Ager from the University of Mannheim for a General Economics Seminar (GES), exploring the social and economic effects of one of the 19th century’s most influential technologies: the sewing machine. The seminar gathered researchers and students with interests in economic history, gender, and applied microeconomics.
Professor Ager’s research bridges economic history and applied microeconomics to study long-run development, immigration, demographic change, and structural transformation. His presentation examined how the spread of the sewing machine reshaped women’s labor market opportunities, family choices, and social roles.
Technology that reshaped women’s lives
Using detailed historical data from 19th-century Massachusetts, the study investigates the sewing machine both as a factory technology and as a household appliance. Variation in factory adoption and the presence of sewing machine retailers provides the basis for a difference-in-differences design that identifies the socioeconomic effects of technological diffusion.
The results reveal a nuanced pattern. Female labor force participation increased with both factory and household adoption of sewing machines. Marriage and fertility declined following factory adoption, but not household adoption. The effects varied sharply by wealth: poorer women worked more, married less, and had fewer children, while wealthier women were more likely to marry and had higher fertility when sewing machines became available for home use. The presence of sewing machine retailers is also linked to the emergence of upper-class women’s clubs, underscoring how technology interacted with social norms and class structures.
Historical insights with modern relevance
The seminar generated lively discussion about how seemingly simple technologies can transform societies in unequal ways—a topic that resonates strongly with debates on contemporary innovation and labor markets.
