Abstract
It is often argued that the abundant labour in the agricultural sector checked wage increases in all sectors in prewar Japan. However, this claim ignores the fact that Japan achieved agricultural growth along with industrialization. This paper examines the impact of agricultural development on the supply of labour from the agricultural to the industrial sector in the Sennan district of Osaka Prefecture. In Sennan, cotton weaving developed as a cottage industry until the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century, with peasants producing cloth to supplement agricultural income. However, the establishment of small and medium-sized weaving factories, which recruited female workers from peasant households in the neighbouring areas, replaced domestic weaving with a factory system. This deprived peasant households of income from domestic weaving. At the same time, however, the region experienced rapid agricultural growth. This growth enabled peasants to obtain sufficient income to make up for the loss, and they were unwilling to send workers to weaving factories. Thus, the managers of the weaving factories had to offer higher wages to workers.
