The Standard of Living in the Chosŏn Dynasty Korea in the 17th to the 19th Centuries

With the aid of official statistics published by the Kingdom's administration, and newly available indices of output, acreage, wages, population, and the price level, constructed from various other sources, this study establishes almost for the first time the long-term trends in the standard of living in the late Chosŏn, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. We then put the Korean trends to a larger picture of East Asia, including China and Japan. We investigate the tilled acreage per capita and the land productivity which together determine the agricultural product per capita, hence the per capita rural income. Alongside, we examine the long-term trends in real wages of rural and urban laborers. The comparative look at the three East Asian countries showed that Korea had the lowest and deteriorating living standards in the 17-19th centuries. This may be explained by poor irrigation system, natural disasters caused by deforestation, and the shortage of fertilizers.