Job loss due to milking machines – a blessing for Norwegian women
Credit: 123rf
Hand milking of cows was a task typically performed by young rural women. Hundreds of thousands of them were being displaced by the uptake of milking machines in the 1950s. “This was a real technology shock,” says Philipp Ager from the EPoS Economic Research Center. Ager holds the Chair of Applied Macroeconomics at the University of Mannheim. “We analyzed the effects over a period of 40 years and find that women paid a high price initially. They lost their job and were being pushed out of agriculture altogether. Yet, the data also reveal that those affected benefited in the long term.”