Unskilled wage gaps within the Japanese Empire

This study calculates the cost of subsistence and respectability consumption baskets to derive ‘welfare ratios’ for 11 cities in the J apanese E mpire as defined by A llen and his colleagues. Nominal wages tended to be higher where higher prices prevailed, and vice versa. Prices and nominal wages remained highest in J apan and lowest in M anchuria, with K orea and T aiwan being placed in between. Welfare ratios remained roughly comparable in the 1910s in the imperial cities outside M anchuria, where unskilled workers enjoyed substantially higher living standards. Interwar decades saw real wages rise in T okyo, but fall in D alian, which caused convergence in workers' income levels. Wage divergence occurred within M anchuria, as workers in S henyang and C hangchun enjoyed an improving welfare ratio. Real wages rose more slowly in K orean and T aiwanese than in J apanese cities. Replacing a subsistence lifestyle with a ‘respectable’ lifestyle yields a significantly different picture of the evolution of the real wage gap within the empire, which contradicts findings reported by existing studies in important respects.