# data[].attributes.body
1760 - 1830

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1870 - 1914

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Begun in Great Britain due to factors like

Natural resources such as coal and iron

Growing population i.e. increasing labor force

New inventions like the steam engine and the spinning jenny

Availability of capital to fund the industries

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1969 - present

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2011 - present

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Textile

Flying Shuttle

Spinning Jenny

Water Frame

Power Loom

Cotton Gin

Steam Engines

Newcomen

Watt

Locomotive

Bessemer Process - mass production of steel

Telegraph etc.

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The mid-20th century invention of the Transistor led to

The rise of electronics and digital computers

Followed by the development of the Internet and telecommunication in the 20th century

Shift from mechanical to digital electronics

Birth of the information age

Automation and Robotics

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Shift from farming to working in factories and industries for a livelihood

Huge demand for employees from management to workers in the factories, as well as slaves for farming

Long hours (12-16 hours a day/six days a week)

High risk and less security

Low wages

Exploitation of women and children

Poor living conditions

Class divisions

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Industrialization ushered much of the world into the modern era, revamping patterns of human settlement, labor, and family life.

Subjects

Social Studies, Economics, U.S. History, World History

Image

Power Looms

Women and children were often employed in the textile industry during the first century of industrialization. Their smaller fingers were often better at threading the machinery. Despite routinely working 16 hours, or longer, a day they were paid little.

Photograph by Nancy Carter

The Industrial Revolution deserves the name with which historians have tagged it. It brought about thorough and lasting transformations, not just in business and economics but in the basic structures of society. Before industrialization, when the most significant economic activities in most European countries were small-scale farming and artisan handicrafts, social structures remained essentially as they had been during the Middle Ages. The advent of industrial development revamped patterns of human settlement, labor, and family life. The changes set in motion by industrialization ushered Europe, the United States of America, and much of the world into the modern era.

Most historians place the origin of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the middle decades of the 18th century. In the British Isles and most of Europe at this time, most social activity took place in small and medium-sized villages. People rarely traveled far beyond their home village. During the 18th century, the population of Britain and other European countries began rising significantly. Among the first signs of economic transformation was an increase in agricultural productivity, making it possible to feed this rising population. The combination of these factors led to profound changes in how rural people lived. Gradually, large-scale mechanized agriculture to serve the market began to overtake the kinds of subsistence farming most peasants had practiced for generations. The enclosure movement, which converted commonly held grazing lands into fenced-off private property, added to the new pressures facing the poor, rural majority.

The population increase added to the number of people facing difficulties making a living on the land. Many left their agrarian lives behind and headed for towns and cities to find employment. Advances in industry and the growth of factory production accelerated the trend toward urbanization in Britain. Industrial cities like Manchester and Leeds grew dramatically over the course of a few short decades. In 1800, about 20 percent of the British population lived in urban areas. By the middle of the nineteenth century, that proportion had risen to 50 percent. Other Western European lands such as France, the Netherlands, and Germany also experienced an increase in urban populations, albeit, more slowly. These changes thoroughly disrupted longstanding patterns in social relationships that dated back to medieval times.

The nature of work in the new urban industries also had significant social impact. Before the Industrial Revolution, artisans with specialized skills produced most of Europe's manufactured goods. Their work was governed by the traditions of their craft and the limits of available resources. Human and animal muscle and the waterwheel were the era's main energy sources. With the coming of factory-based industry, the coal-fired steam engine and other machinery set a new, faster pace for labor. In the factories, coal mines, and other workplaces, the hours were very long, and the conditions, generally, dismal and dangerous. The size and scope of manufacturing enterprises continued to increase throughout the 19th century as Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world industrialized. Larger firms that could achieve economies of scale held an advantage in the competitive sphere of international trade. In the industrializing world, the new means of production meant the demise of earlier, slower modes of labor and life.

The most insidious consequences of the new conditions may have been those affecting the most basic social unit: the family. The preindustrial family was fundamentally both a social and an economic unit. Married couples and their children often worked side by side on a family farm or in a shop, or otherwise divided their labor for the family's overall benefit. It was also common in 18th-century Great Britain for women and men to work in their rural homes doing jobs such as textile spinning and weaving on a piecework basis for merchant owners. This decentralized form of employment was called the "putting-out" or domestic system. However, the rise of factory production and industrial cities meant a separation of the home from the workplace for most male workers. Very often, the need for income motivated men to leave their families behind for jobs in the city. Even without geographic separation, many types of industrial jobs were so demanding that they left little downtime for workers to spend preserving the relational bonds we associate with family life.

Women also worked outside the home. Unmarried women, in particular, often worked as domestic servants. Many British women, including mothers, were employed in the textile mills to help their families make ends meet. Child labor was also rampant in the textile industry during the first century of industrialization. Factory owners appreciated having workers whose fingers were small enough to manipulate delicately threaded machinery. Despite their importance to the industry's output, these women and children were paid very little and were routinely compelled to work 16 hours per day or longer. Their jobs were perceived as less skilled than those of their male co-workers, although the working conditions were sometimes equally dangerous.

The United States underwent many of the same social transformations arising from industrialization. U.S. manufacturing began in earnest after the nation broke from England in the 1770s. An embargo on foreign imports during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, and a British blockade of the Atlantic seaboard during the War of 1812, spurred domestic production. The United States became one of the world's leading economic powers by the 1830s.

In the first half century after U.S. independence, a major proportion of the nation's labor force shifted from the agricultural to the manufacturing sector. As in Great Britain, the textile industry led the way toward mechanization. In many industries, though, home-based production and artisan craft traditions gave way to wage labor in larger, machine-powered operations. Industrialization, along with great strides in transportation, drove the growth of U.S. cities and a rapidly expanding market economy. It also shaped the development of a large working class in U.S. society, leading eventually to labor struggles and strikes led by working men and women.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain, the United States, and other industrialized nations were debating and enacting reform laws to limit some of the worst abuses of the factory system. However, similarly oppressive labor conditions arose in many parts of the world as their economies industrialized in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reorganization of daily life wrought by industrialization had effects that weakened the material basis for the institutions of the family and the community. These effects were so lasting that they can still be felt in the present day-even as developed societies have shifted into an era that scholars describe as "postindustrial."

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Director

Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society

Production Managers

Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society

Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society

Program Specialists

Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society

Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

other

Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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Industrialization ushered much of the world into the modern era, revamping patterns of human settlement, labor, and family life.

# data[].attributes.body
Has been defined by the technological developments in cyber-physical systems like

high capacity connectivity

human-machine interaction mode such as touch screens and VRs

robotics and 3D printing

cloud computing

AI and machine learning

Green technology such as solar, wind, hydro, etc.

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Started due to the factors like

New energy sources such as electricity and petroleum

Major steel production and automation - building railways, ships, and large structures

New industries such as the automobile and petroleum

Improved communication and transportation due to the innovations like telegraph, telephone, internal combustion engine, etc.

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Communication

Telephone

Radio

Typewriter

Energy & Manufacturing

Light Bulb

Electricity

Steel Production

Assembly Line

Petroleum Refining

Transportation

Internal Combustion Engine

Automobile

Phonograph & Moving Pictures - new forms of entertainment

Skyscrapers & Elevators, etc.

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Demand for industrial labor but decreased due to automation

High risk and rates of accidents

Long hours (14-16 hours a day/six days a week)

Low wages for women and children

Economic insecurity

Rise of Labor Unions

Migration to cities to fill the labor shortages in the industries

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Electronics

Transistor

integrated circuits

microchips

computers

Nuclear power and energy

Automation and Robotics

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs)

robots

Internet (WWW)

Digital Transformation

Global Communication, etc.

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New industries created more opportunities such as in IT industry

Shift to workforce/service sector from manufacturing

Demand for new and multiple skills and adaptibility

machine taking over routine tasks with automation

Internet leading to new form of work

More flexibility in work hours and reduced efforts (8-10 hours a day/five days a week)

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In South Africa, everyone is talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR, but when leaders including politicians are asked "What is the 4 th Industrial Revolution?" and when they can't answer, the proverbial question that follows is, "So what is the 3 rd Industrial Revolution then?"

Could the reason that South Africans are slow or scared to embark on this journey is because they don't know what it is? All they know is that it will cause them to lose their jobs (so they have heard).

Let's explore the various industrial revolutions and their impact on jobs.

The First Industrial Revolution took place from the 18th to 19th centuries in Europe and North America. It was a period when mostly agrarian, rural societies became industrial and urban. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the water wheel and then the steam engine, played central roles in the Industrial Revolution.

The impact of the First Industrial Revolution was felt on the agricultural community. Work was predominately performed by hand. People who no longer were able to farm as their land got taken over by factories, reskilled to become boiler makers, ironsmiths, mechanics, etc as these industries now has machines that need to be fabricated or repaired. These skills were previously in low demand. There was short-term job losses, but different jobs were created that did not previously exist.

The Second Industrial Revolution took place between 1870 and 1914, just before World War I. It was a period of growth for pre-existing industries and expansion of new ones, such as steel, oil and electricity, and used electric power to create mass production. Major technological advances during this period included the telephone, light bulb, phonograph and the internal combustion engine. With the transition from steam power to electricity, there may have been short-term job losses but if the steam mechanics reskilled to electricians, they would have retained their jobs. Yet again there were new skills to be acquired that previously did not exist. Also, with mass production lines, more jobs were created than previously required.

The Third Industrial Revolution, or the Digital Revolution, refers to the advancement of technology from analogue electronic and mechanical devices to the digital technology available today. The era started during the 1980s. Advances during the Third Industrial Revolution include the personal computer, the Internet, and information and communications technology (ICT). Mass production with small batches but with wider varieties was possible. Jobs got replaced by computers and robots, however if you weren't computer literate then you may have who lost their jobs. Yet again, new jobs were created that previously did not exist e.g. software and hardware engineers.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, The Internet of Things (IoT), decentralized consensus, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles. The biggest impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is to improve the quality of life, reduce inequality of the world's population and raise income level.[1]

The previous industrial revolutions predicted mass job losses but history can tell us that this was not true. In fact, jobs were created and living standards improved.[2] For this Industrial Revolution, the fear is that unskilled workers will be replaced by machines but also workers in skilled professions like medicine and finance too will be replaced. The key strategy for this and previous industrial revolutions is to retrain and reskill and transform the workforce. History has proven that more jobs are created in new field and areas. Humans and machines need to work together, and the role of a data scientist previously not required comes to fore.

Instead of wasting time worry about your job, rather spend the time reskilling yourself to be ready for your new role. All you need to do is to choose one. The table[3] below could guide you to a new or revised role.

In summary, each industrial revolution has brought the fear of job losses, history has proven that this is untrue. The question is "Are you ready to reskill to take advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?"

Author: Eva Noble CA(SA) is Chief Operations officer at ONPRO Consulting SA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Industrial_Revolution

[2] https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/fourth-industrial-revolution

[3] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2018.pdf

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The Stages of Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on Jobs

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Artificial Intelligence

Internet of Things (IoT)

Robotics and Automation

Blockchain and eCommerce

AR & VR

Cloud Computing

Big data

3D printing

Biotechnology

Quantum Computing

The 5G Network

Electrical Vehicles (EVs), etc.

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Flexibility in the work environment (remote, hybrid)

Increase in automation using AI and robotics leading to decrease in employment

Requires new and adaptable skills and learning continuosly

Emergence of new roles such as data scientist, AI specialists, etc.

Non-standard employment such as consulting, gig works, remote work from different time zones risking benefits and legal protections

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Jobs and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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“The future is not preordained by machines. It’s created by humans.” These are the words of Erik Brynjolfsson, director at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the continuing automation and digitization of our world and our workplace is a seismic shift. This session discusses in what ways jobs and our relationship with work may continue to change in the wake of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.