#23 - Throughout European history famines have generally

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox-X. The correct answer choice is (D)

Historically, prolonged periods of famine are followed by periods of rising wages because workers are more scarce and therefore more valuable. For some reason, the Irish potato famine of the 1840s was an exception: the workforce was cut in half and yet the average wages did not rise.

The four incorrect answers to a ResolveX question will actively resolve the paradox, that is, they will allow both sides to be factually correct and will either explain how the situation came into being or add a piece of information that shows how the two ideas or occurrences can coexist. Any answer choice that explains why the average wages did not rise in Ireland following the Irish potato famine of the 1840s will therefore be incorrect.

Answer choice (A): If improved medical care quickly reduced the mortality rate to below prefamine levels, it is reasonable to expect that the Irish population grew rapidly in the decade following the famine and that the shortage of workers was successfully averted. Because this answer choice explains the paradox, it is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): If the majority of those who left Ireland were the elderly and the infirm, the number of able-bodied workers need not have diminished enough to cause a shortage of workers. Because this answer choice explains why the average wage in Ireland did not increase, it is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): If the diminished supply of labor was counterbalanced by a diminished demand for it, it is not surprizing that workers were unable to secure higher average wages. In a competitive labor market, the cost of labor will always equalize the quantity demanded by manufacturers and the quantity supplied by the labor force, resulting in an economic equilibrium. If both supply and demand are lower than before, it is reasonable to expect that the cost of labor will remain the same.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Even though the birth rate increased during the decade following the famine and thus compensated for much of the loss of population, such an increase can have no immediate effect on the labor force, which is comprised of adults. Because this answer choice does not explain why Ireland was an exception, it is correct.

Answer choice (E): If England legislated artificially low wages, no wonder the average wages in Ireland did not rise following the labor shortages of 1840s. This answer choice explains the Irish paradox and is therefore incorrect.

[Coleman]

I narrowed it down to A and D, but A sounds more convincing, and here is my reasoning.
This famine resulted in the death or emigration of half of Ireland's population which automatically will be translated into expected wage increase.
Let's say the Irish population used to be 100, but the famine swept away 50 people which left only 50 people in Ireland. What answer choice A explains is that the improved medical care reduced the mortality rate among these remaining 50 people to below prefamine levels. If this med care happened after the loss of 50 people, How could it possibly help to resolve the paradox? Especially when the general mortality rate of the prefamine era was, say 10% (10 people died out of 100) then now it become 5 people out of 50. This doesn't compensate for the loss of population brought by famine.

D sounds relatively more convincing since increased birth rate compensated for much of the loss of population that was not filled by answer choice A except it can't bring the immediate effect on labor force. Could you clarify the logic behind answer choice A?

Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Coleman,

Keep it simple with answer choice A--it has the chance of affecting the labor population (the population of "able-bodied adults") in a way that would stabilize wages, because it allows for the possibility that fewer laborers are dying than would ordinarily die. And notice that the stimulus only tells us that half the population was lost to death or emigration--so we don't know how many of those were children or retirees. So if much of the population that was left after the famine was laborers, and fewer of them were dying than would normally die, that could have the effect of stabilizing wages. Is it an answer that gives us total certainty that that's what happened? No. But it could explain the stabilization.

Answer choice D has no chance of explaining the stabilization, because just having more babies born isn't replacing specifically the labor force. After all, even the oldest of those new babies (born just after the famine) would only be 10 years old at the end of the decade answer choice D discusses. That's not old enough to provide much (if any) paid replacement labor. So answer choice D can't explain the labor problem, because it's talking about people who aren't (and most of whom absolutely couldn't be) part of that labor force.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[David_S]

I also struggled with A vs D and still am not convinced. I thought of the "child labor" argument, but in a place like ireland of the time I maybe they had little qualms about child labor. On the other hand, quality of medical care after the people have died seems irrelevant (since the laborers presumably died during the famine, not after)

[Adam Tyson]

The four wrong answers to this Resolve-Except question don't have to completely solve the problem. All they have to do is HELP solve the problem. They need to contribute to why wages in the decade after the famine did not rise.

Note that this is not about what happened to wages during the famine. It's possible that during the famine, wages went up as labor became harder to find. But after the famine, wages stabilized rather than rising as was usually the case. Answer A helps to explain that, because fewer workers were dying during that following decade. Able-bodied adults lived longer, so presumably they worked longer, and so while there may still have been fewer workers than before the famine, there was a growing number of workers, relatively speaking, when compared to the famine and the period before the famine. The labor force during that time was increasing, which could have a compensating downward pressure on wages.

A baby boom doesn't do much to affect labor costs, at least not for a while! Perhaps as the babies born at the very beginning of the decade get to age 8 or so, they might go to work if there was child labor that young in Ireland at the time, but that is much more speculative than answer A, which would have a clearer immediate impact on the labor force. If your workers aren't dying, you don't need to hire replacements for them!