Question

How did the industrial revolution change the way people worked?

Answer 1

Hint: Industrial Revolution is referred to as the period starting from the late 18th century when in Europe a transition from the agrarian and rural societies to manufacturing and mechanised urban centres took place. This event is the biggest factor in the economic processes of the modern-day world.

Complete answer: The centre of production in Europe as well as in America after the Industrial Revolution changed from the farm and countryside land to the urban centres. These urbanised localities became the harbour of mechanised production. Thus, a major population shift also took place in search of new work opportunities, towards the industrial areas. This population was mostly rural peasants whose lands had been taken over by wealthy farmers and landlords with an increase in large scale agriculture.
People started to migrate with families and all family members were employed as factory labourers. There was a shortage of livid space in the urban localities, which meant more and more people became homeless and took shelter on the outside of the factories itself. The working conditions were deplorable and the number of unskilled labour increased because most of the work was done through machines and labour was required only to do repetitive work which was only a small part of the process.
Due to an increase in labour supply, production of goods and the fall in prices of the goods, the wages of the labourers also went down. Thus, the standard of living fell dramatically for daily wage workers. Though industrialisation was an economic boom for the capitalists and the state too, people belonging to the labour class deteriorated further in their social status as the economic gap became wider and wider.

Note: Industrial revolution was also the time when some great inventions took place which was responsible for setting off such a fast-paced production. These included the spinning jenny, steam engine, power loom, sewing machine, telegraph, dynamite and the incandescent light bulb.