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Published July 1981 | Published
Journal Article Open

Literacy and age in preindustrial England: Quantitative evidence and implications

Abstract

The extent of literacy in the past has been the subject of a considerable number of quantitative historical investigations during recent decades. In the case of preindustrial England, the analysis of such studies has relied on bivariate statistical procedures. While a number of these studies have made important contributions, their reliance on a single method of statistical analysis raises a question common in quantitative research, namely, to what extent are empirical results and interpretations specific to the estimating procedures used to produce them? This paper will present an analysis of some correlates of the literacy of some English men and women of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in an explicitly multivariate framework. Two different multivariate regression techniques will be employed in order to gain an indication of the robustness of the results to alternative specifications.

Additional Information

© 1981 by The University of Chicago. I am grateful to Stanley Engerman for discussions of many of the issues treated in this paper, and to Andrew Abel, Frederic Mishkin, and Roger Schofield for helpful comments and suggestions. Kevin O'Meara and Henry Otto provided able assistance with the programming. Formerly SSWP 321.

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August 19, 2023
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