>This must be why in the 1950’s large swathes of Europe saw so many farmers fleeing their land to go live in the city and take up those new fangled factory jobs

>This must be why in the 1950’s large swathes of Europe saw so many farmers fleeing their land to go live in the city and take up those new fangled factory jobs. Did they though? Doesn't match my knowledge. Most farmers at the time who owned plots of fertile land would rather break their backs working the land themselves (even if for thin margins of subsistence farming) rather than move to the cities to live in cramped conditions and break their backs working factory jobs for low pay. The only country folk who migrated to cities to take factory jobs were mostly people who didn't own much land or any at all, making them relatively poor, so a factory job in the city was a better prospect than poverty in the country side working someone else's land. But land owning farmers would never downgrade by going to work factory jobs.