Population, labour and living standards in early modern Ceylon: An empirical contribution to the divergence debate

Abstract

In the light of the great divergence debate, the economic history of Asian countries has attracted increased attention in the past decade. This article brings early modern Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) into the discourse, providing new quantitative evidence on wages, prices, demography and occupations from the Dutch East India Company archives. It is shown that throughout the eighteenth century, Ceylonese living standards were around subsistence level, lower than in Europe, and, until 1760, China. This can to some extent be attributed to population growth, driven by high birth rates rather than high life expectancies. The occupational structure in the maritime provinces of Ceylon shows that almost one-third of the labour force laboured outside agriculture in 1684, which does not compare favourably with England and Holland. These tentative figures suggest that Ceylon already lagged behind north- western Europe before 1800.