section_path: Social effects/Standards of living
section_name: Standards of living
paragraph_text: Standards of living
  
  Some economists, such as Robert Lucas Jr., say that the real effect of the Industrial Revolution was that "for the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth... Nothing remotely like this economic behaviour is mentioned by the classical economists, even as a theoretical possibility." Others argue that while the growth of the economy's overall productive powers was unprecedented during the Industrial Revolution, living standards for the majority of the population did not grow meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries and that in many ways workers' living standards declined under early capitalism: some studies have estimated that real wages in Britain only increased 15% between the 1780s and 1850s and that life expectancy in Britain did not begin to dramatically increase until the 1870s.
  
  The average height of the population declined during the Industrial Revolution, implying that their nutritional status was also decreasing.
  
  During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829. The effects on living conditions have been controversial and were hotly debated by economic and social historians from the 1950s to the 1980s. Over the course of the period from 1813 to 1913, there was a significant increase in worker wages.