The occupational and geographical mobility of farm labourers in Flanders from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century

The Agricultural Invasion and the Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Policy in Belgium, 1875-1900

“…The absolute number of farmers remained stable around 775,000 between the middle of the century and 1896, but the relative importance of agricultural employment dropped quickly from just under 50% in 1846 to about 25% around 1900 (Klep 1976;Blomme 1992). After the end of the industrial crisis around 1895, the employment in the agricultural sector also descended in absolute terms (De Brabander 1983, p. 36, 46 and annex B;De Moor 2001). The number of land laborers decreased from 180,000 in 1880 to 161,000 in 1910.…”

Reciprocal exchange, credit and cash: agricultural labour markets and local economies in the southern Low Countries during the eighteenth century

“…In many cases the value of the payment in kind was equal to payment in specie. 85 Behind the monetary sum represented by the wage lies a complex system of reciprocal exchange and entitlements. Microresearch, based for example on farm account books, can expose these complex interactions relating to the pre-industrial rural labour market.…”

Mobilising labour : a spatial analysis of railway infrastructure, commuting flows and rural-urban relations in Belgium, 1846-1961

“…Indeed, as Martina De Moor stated, income pooling was "the key mechanism in the survival policy of the rural population", given that the amount of land rural households had at their disposal was generally insufficient to sustain all its members. 599 Eric Vanhaute and Leen van Molle retraced the origin of the coping mechanism to the eleventh century, with Martina De Moor arguing that the combining land and labour by households in the countryside continued well into the twentieth century. 600 Hereby, Wouter Ronsijn stressed that the broader economic organisation of society delineated the kind of non-agrarian activities rural households integrated in their income pooling strategies.…”