ble. Furthermore, the neo-classical assumption that the labour force is a constant proportion of the total population does not hold true for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their abundance of small-holders and self-producers who might enter or withdraw from the labour market. Thus, even if the amount of labour offered by those currently employed was reduced, higher wages might induce others to enter the labour market. As Mathias has put it: `One man's leisure preference might prove to be another man's employment opportunity'.(55) Nor is the persistence of a high utility accorded to leisure necessarily in conflict with an increase in the supply of labour on the market brought about by a shift in the proportions of the productive resources of households from non-marketed goods and labour to marketed goods and labour. Instead, some part of the additional income generated by wives and children in this manner might have been used to support a lower work intensity by the male heads of households. Finally, and most importantly, even a strong predilection for leisure did not mean that increases in wage rates or falls in the prices of subsistence goods were translated penny for penny into more time off work, as was sometimes suggested by contemporaries. In fact, it is much more likely that favourable movements in wage rates and prices would lead to an increase in both leisure and consumption, an outcome which helps to explain the paradox that the poor in times of high wages and plenty were accused both of refusing to work and of consuming more goods, many of which were unbefitting their social station.Continued from page 12In short, a multitude of forces pushing in a variety of directions played their part in determining the working patterns of the labouring and artisan classes and the amount of voluntary leisure which they might take, and, what is more, the mix and strength of each of these changed over time, space and occupation...
