Wouter Ryckbosch
Welcome to the personal website of Wouter Ryckbosch, professor in history at Ghent University. My principal research fields are economic history, social history, and the history of inequality.
About me
I am a social and economic historian affiliated with Ghent University (since 2025), and previously with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2016–2025). My research interests lie in the complex history of social relations and transformations. Using both quantitative and narrative approaches, I aim to explore how social inequalities were shaped and evolved over the past centuries of turbulent economic change.
In recent years, I have enjoyed teaching a variety of courses on urban history, scientific change, the rise of capitalism, the history of the ‘deep past,’ and historical research methods. I currently teach “Inleiding tot de Wereldgeschiedenis” (Introduction to World History), “Economische geschiedenis van de moderne en hedendaagse periode” (Economic history of the modern and contemporary period), and a part of “Historische economie” (Economic history) at Ghent University.
My publications include work on the history of income inequality in the Low Countries since the late Middle Ages, the social changes brought about by the introduction of tea, and energy transitions during the Industrial Revolution. More recently, I initiated new research into the evolution of wealth inequality in 19th- and 20th-century Belgium, I study the development of women’s and child labor before and after industrialization, and I am involved in a project on social relations in the eighteenth-century Cape Colony.