The Malthusian “preventive check” mechanism has been well documented for preindustrial England through evidence for a negative correlation between the marriage rate and the price of wheat. Other literature, however, speculates that the correlation was in fact positive from the early...

This paper presents a wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850 and compares it with existing evidence for men. Our series cast light on long run trends in women’s agency and wellbeing, revealing an intractable, indeed widening gap between women and men’s remuneration...