The Division of Labor in Society by sociologist Émile Durkheim is best understood when placed within the socio-historical context of 19th-century continental Europe. Since The Division of Labor in Society reprises, expands, and comments on popular economic, moral, and scientific theories of the time, readers who are aware of these specificities are better equipped to grasp the assumptions and arguments Durkheim employs to support his reasoning. This guide will explore each of these three factors in turn.

The advent of the Industrial Revolution that began in the latter half of the 1700s created a profound shift in social and industrial organization across Europe. This period is characterized by a gradual shift away from crafting goods by hand toward a more mechanized production method. It is also accompanied by a population boom, technological and scientific innovation, and exploration as part of colonialism. Born in 1858, Durkheim lived in a society shaped by the first wave and in the middle of the second wave of the Industrial Revolution.

The effects of the Second Industrial Revolution are profound, but the most relevant factors to The Division of Labor include the inflation of large-scale mechanized industries; the expansion and saturation of towns; the further development of the railway; the expansion of migratory patterns; the division of science into various fields; and the fraying of traditional institutions such as religion.