Throughout European history famines have generally been followed by periods of rising wages, because when a labor for...
CairoSeptember 3, 2014
Alternatives
I thought D could resolve the issue, considering a higher birth rate could maintain the work force in the following decade by allowing for the increase in children to therefore yield an increase in the percentage of child labor which would compensate for the loss of adults in the labor force and thereby would stabilize the total labor force population.
The question being set in an 1800s post famine society, I think it is reasonable to factor child labor as part of the labor force considering the question does not define itself in terms of exclusively as adult laborers.
I understand this could be the "least" answer because it only speaks to total population and does not directly comment the population of the labor force, but I think it could also resolve the issue in the way I described above. I feel sometimes this kind of plausible-indirect line of thought justifies the answer in some questions while in others like this one it does not.
How can I become better at distinguishing times when plausible explanations are relevant and irrelevant to justifying the answer on the LSAT?
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The paradox in this question is that, generally throughout European history, famines have been followed by periods of rising wages. However, though the Irish potato famine of the 1840s resulted in the death or emigration of half of Ireland's population, there was no significant rise in the average wages in Ireland in the following decade.
You hit the nail on the head when you said that answer choice (D) is the only answer choice that does not discuss the labor force. Further, answer choice (D) requires a lot of assumptions.
Answer choice (D) states: "The birth rate increased during the decade following the famine, and this compensated for much of the loss of population that was due to the famine."
So, answer choice (D) tells us that the birth rates increased during the decade following the famine. Technically, that could mean that in the tenth year after the famine, the birth rates increased. These newborns would then not count as any type of work force, merely they would offset the loss in population. Thus, answer choice (D) could quite possibly be irrelevant to helping explain why the Irish potato famine was not followed by a rise in the average wages.
We do not know when these new children were born. If they were all born immediately after the famine, then it is possible that they could have had an impact on the population loss in regards to the labor force, though even that requires us to believe that young children would help offset the loss in labor force; however, we do not know when they were born.
As to your larger question, answer choices that require you to bring outside information in are never correct, i.e. just because a question is set in a post famine society does not make it "reasonable to factor child labor as part of the labor force." You should never bring in outside information to answer the question. The boundaries of our knowledge for each question rest within the limits of the text on the page.
It's important never to assume. I think your misunderstanding came from assuming that all the children born after the famine were born immediately after the famine, but we had not been given any specific information on when this increase in birth rate occurred; we only know that it happened in "the decade following the famine."
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any more questions.
rlquerubinJanuary 5, 2020
Why is D marked as the correct answer to this question? This discussion says that D is incorrect and I chose E as that would explain why wages did not rise in Ireland post-potato famine. England was artificially keeping wages low to increase profits for English-owned businesses in Ireland.
jordanbirnholtzMay 10, 2020
Hey, this is a very interesting question and I'm grateful for everyone's contributions so far. @rlquerubin, I'd like to try to answer your question before I ask my own. D is marked as the correct answer according to the instructor and app because we are trying to select the worst possible answer. If I understand your question correctly, I think you might be missing the part of the stimulus that indicates we are looking for the worst answer. I initially struggled with that piece of the stimulus, I missed it on my first read!
@naz and @ravi: I can see why D is not a great answer and potentially incorrect (and therefore the right answer choice). I think that where I am struggling is the idea that we should not bring in outside information from beyond the stimulus. I would have assumed that D was an alright answer because if you think children can work (which people in 19c did), then you can explain a shift in supply of workers here. Assuming that the birth rate did not increase until the 10th year after this seems like it requires reading beyond what is in the stimulus – basically, I don't see a way to answer this without trying to falsify the answer with potentially true but unverified external information. Can anyone offer some additional guidance on this? Thank you very much!
