How do you distinguish whether x or y are independent or dependent?

Establishing the relation between variables.

Explanation:

Dependent or independent means the relation between.

As its names says, dependent variable depends to the other variable. For example, time and speed. Speed depends on how much time you're moving. But, time doesn't depend on speed, because time is absolute, it's change the same way no matter what.

So, in this example time is independent and speed is dependent.

In summary, you need to analyse who depends on who.

Hope was helpful.

food and resources were plentiful.

women were encouraged to marry later in life so they could work in factories.