Industrialisation ( UK) or industrialization ( US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

for the purpose of

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

. Industrialisation is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. With the increasing focus on

sustainable development Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...

and green industrial policy practices, industrialisation increasingly includes technological leapfrogging, with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies. The reorganisation of the economy has many unintended consequences both economically and socially. As industrial workers' incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tend to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial

investment Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...

and

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

. Moreover, family structures tend to shift as extended families tend to no longer live together in one household, location or place.

Background

The first transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy is known as the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

and took place from the mid-18th to early 19th century. It began in Great Britain, spreading to Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France and eventually to other areas in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and North America. Characteristics of this early industrialisation were technological progress, a shift from rural work to industrial labour, and financial investments in new industrial structures. Later commentators have called this the First Industrial Revolution. The "

Second Industrial Revolution The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid Discovery (observation), scientific discovery, standardisation, mass production and industrialisation from the late 19th century into the early ...

" labels the later changes that came about in the mid-19th century after the refinement of the

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

, the invention of the

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

, the harnessing of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

and the construction of canals, railways, and electric-power lines. The invention of the assembly line gave this phase a boost. Coal mines, steelworks, and textile factories replaced homes as the place of work. By the end of the 20th century,

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

had become one of the most recently industrialised regions of the world. There is considerable literature on the factors facilitating industrial modernisation and enterprise development.

Social consequences

The

was accompanied by significant changes in the social structure, the main change being a transition from farm work to factory-related activities. This has resulted in the concept of Social class, i.e., hierarchical social status defined by an individual's economic power. It has changed the family system as most people moved into cities, with extended family living apart becoming more common. The movement into more dense urban areas from less dense agricultural areas has consequently increased the transmission of diseases. The place of women in society has shifted from primary caregivers to breadwinners, thus reducing the number of children per household. Furthermore, industrialisation contributed to increased cases of

child labour Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

and thereafter education systems.

Urbanisation

As the Industrial Revolution was a shift from the agrarian society, people migrated from villages in search of jobs to places where factories were established. This shifting of rural people led to urbanisation and an increase in the population of towns. The concentration of labour in factories has increased urbanisation and the size of settlements, to serve and house the factory workers.

Exploitation

Changes in family structure

Family structure changes with industrialisation. Sociologist Talcott Parsons noted that in pre-industrial societies there is an extended family structure spanning many generations who probably remained in the same location for generations. In industrialised societies the

nuclear family A nuclear family (also known as an elementary family, atomic family, or conjugal family) is a term for a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single ...

, consisting of only parents and their growing children, predominates. Families and children reaching adulthood are more mobile and tend to relocate to where jobs exist. Extended family bonds become more tenuous. One of the most important criticisms of industrialisation is that it caused children to stay away from home for many hours and to use them as cheap workers in factories.

Industrialisation in East Asia

Between the early 1960s and 1990s, the Four Asian Tigers underwent rapid industrialisation and maintained exceptionally high growth rates.

Current situation

the international development community (

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), many United Nations departments,

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition ...

WHO ILO and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

, endorses development policies like water purification or

primary education Primary education is the first stage of Education, formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary education. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first schools and middle s ...

and co-operation amongst third world communities.United Nations Millennium Development Goals https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ / . Un.org (20 May 2008). Retrieved on 2013-07-29. Some members of the

economic communities A multilateral free trade agreement is between several countries all treated equally, and creates a free trade area. Every customs union, common market, economic union, customs and monetary union and economic and monetary union is also a free tr ...

do not consider contemporary industrialisation policies as being adequate to the global south (Third World countries) or beneficial in the longer term, with the perception that they may only create inefficient local industries unable to compete in the free-trade dominated political order which industrialisation has fostered.

Environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

and

Green politics Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy.#Wal10, Wall 2010. p. 12-13. ...

may represent more visceral reactions to industrial growth. Nevertheless, repeated examples in history of apparently successful industrialisation (Britain, Soviet Union, South Korea, China, etc.) may make conventional industrialisation seem like an attractive or even natural path forward, especially as populations grow, consumerist expectations rise and agricultural opportunities diminish. The relationships among economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction are complex, and higher productivity can sometimes lead to static or even lower

employment Employment is a relationship between two party (law), parties Regulation, regulating the provision of paid Labour (human activity), labour services. Usually based on a employment contract, contract, one party, the employer, which might be a cor ...

(see jobless recovery).Claire Melamed, Renate Hartwig and Ursula Grant 2011
Jobs, growth and poverty: what do we know, what don't we know, what should we know?
London: Overseas Development Institute There are differences across sectors, whereby manufacturing is less able than the tertiary sector to accommodate both increased productivity and employment opportunities; more than 40% of the world's employees are " working poor", whose incomes fail to keep themselves and their families above the $2-a-day

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

. There is also a phenomenon of deindustrialisation, as in the former

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

countries' transition to market economies, and the agriculture sector is often the key sector in absorbing the resultant unemployment.

References

External links

{{Authority control Industrialisation Economic development Economic growth Industrial history Late modern economic history Secondary sector of the economy