Hunger and migration in a rural-traditional area in the nineteenth century

The factors that influenced migration decisions in a nineteenth century rural-traditional area of the Netherlands are assessed. This is done in a micro-setting. Applying a new data set with individual characteristics of both migrants and non-migrants a logit-model is estimated. The analysis supports the revisionist and relatively positive picture of the standard of living in pre-modern rural-traditional areas. Instead of hunger driving the masses away from these areas, it seems to have tied rationally acting people to a socio-economic system that contained buffer mechanisms to cope with short run stresses. Received: 28 April 1998/Received: 26 April 1999     

African-American and white inequality in the nineteenth century American South: a biological comparison

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economic history. By using a new source of nineteenth century Texas state prison records, the present study contrasts the heights of comparable blacks and whites between the Civil War and Reconstruction in the American South. White stature exceeded black stature. Between 1850 and 1870, black stature declined by more than 1 cm but recovered toward the end of the nineteenth century. Postbellum white stature declined by more than 1 1/2 cm over the same period yet never recovered.

Mortality in Quebec during the nineteenth century: from the state to the cities

The aim of this paper is to explore mortality in Quebec during the nineteenth century from a demographic perspective. During the nineteenth century, there was excess urban mortality in various countries; in order to identify such mortality differentials, we compared mortality indicators for the province of Quebec and then for the urban areas of Montreal and Quebec City. Using data from various studies, we produced life tables and compared life expectancies. We show that at different times during the nineteenth century, spatial variations in mortality levels across the province of Quebec and its urban areas were significant. According to the data we analyzed, mortality is undoubtedly higher in urban areas even though a convergence in trends took place towards the end of the century, resulting in an overall reduction in mortality. Also, exploring life expectancies within a cohort approach at times of fast-changing mortality patterns has proved to be instructive. Life expectancy estimates based on a cross-sectional approach were systematically lower than those resulting from a cohort-specific one. Trends diverged to a greater extent beginning with the 1870 cohort, reflecting the improvements made from that point on to World War II. Since current mortality levels are substantially determined by the cumulative effects of past behaviour specific to each generation, it is quite obvious that mortality analysis will reveal its true meaning only with the help of cohort life tables.     

Demographic responses and socioeconomic structure: Population processes in England and Wales in the nineteenth century

This paper explores some theoretical and empirical aspects related to the theory of change and multiple response. The empirical analysis focuses on 600 relatively small and homogeneous geographical units of England and Wales for the period 1851-1910. These units are classified into six identifiable socioeconomic types and the analysis is male for each of them. Two interrelated tissues are studied. First, a set of explanatory variables, connected either with strain or with factors relieving strain, is constructed. The effects of these explanatory variables on nuptiality, marital fertility, and migration responses are examined for each socioeconomic type, with respect to their significance, intensity, and direction. The patterns of these effects show general consistency with multiphasic response considerations for all socioeconomic types. A significant finding in this part is that migration affects very strongly the intensity of the marital fertility decline response. The second issue deals with theoretically expected patterns of interrelationships among responses in terms of substitutability and complementarity. The theoretical interrelationships are compared with the empirical for each socioeconomic type; and in general, consistency is established. Moreover, these interrelationships can be interpreted for each socioeconomic type in a way that appears to be consistent with multiphasic response considerations. An important finding in this part is that emigration and marital fertility decline are substitute responses in agricultural-based districts. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

A note on the under-registration of births in Britain in the nineteenth century

In this note an attempt has been made to estimate the incompleteness of birth registration in Great Britain in the first decades of civil registration. For Scotland, registration appears to have been reasonably complete after 1861. For England and Wales, however, there seems to have been a considerable initial deficiency, with a consistent improvement over time and no sudden change following the 1874 amending Act. The estimates given in this note suggest that, to allow for under-registration in England and Wales, registered births should be multiplied by a factor of about 1.094 for the period 1841-5, the factor falling steadily to 1.o by 1880. It should be emphasized that the methods of estimation used in this note are indirect and the results very approximate. In the view of the writer, the estimates tend in general to be somewhat too low, especially for the earlier part of the period covered.     

Using nineteenth century census results: the Colombian censuses of 1835, 1843, and 1851

The author discusses three of the six national censuses taken during the ninteenth century in Colombia--those for 1835, 1843, and 1851. The focus is on the importance of macro patterns generated by the data, the methods recommended to overcome the problems of the censuses, and ways to make the information useful for historical demography.     

Regional differences in marital fertility in the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century

Abstract In the Netherlands, as in other countries, substantial regional differences in the birth rate have always been the rule rather than the exception. Of course, differences in crude birth rates may be attributed to a number of possible reasons, not all of them of primary demographic interest. For instance, according to the census of 31st December 1899, the number of women per 1,000 men in the province of Drenthe was only 924; in the province of Zuidholland the corresponding number was 1,073. It is clear that, ceteris paribus, the crude birth rate in Zuidholland would be about 7% higher than in Drenthe at that time. In such a case, the difference could reflect differences in economic development or job opportunities, factors not devoid of demographic significance, but only indirectly so.     

Birth spacing and fertility limitation: a behavioral analysis of a nineteenth century frontier population

Our analysis of changing birth interval distributions over the course of a fertility transition from natural to controlled fertility has examined three closely related propositions. First, within both natural fertility populations (identified at the aggregate level) and cohorts following the onset of fertility limitation, we hypothesized that substantial groups of women with long birth intervals across the individually specified childbearing careers could be identified. That is, even during periods when fertility behavior at the aggregate level is consistent with a natural fertility regime, birth intervals at all parities are inversely related to completed family size. Our tabular analysis enables us to conclude that birth spacing patterns are parity dependent; there is stability in CEB-parity specific mean and birth interval variance over the entire transition. Our evidence does not suggest that the early group of women limiting and spacing births was marked by infecundity. Secondly, the transition appears to be associated with an increasingly larger proportion of women shifting to the same spacing schedules associated with smaller families in earlier cohorts. Thirdly, variations in birth spacing by age of marriage indicate that changes in birth intervals over time are at least indirectly associated with age of marriage, indicating an additional compositional effect. The evidence we have presented on spacing behavior does not negate the argument that parity-dependent stopping behavior was a powerful factor in the fertility transition. Our data also provide evidence of attempts to truncate childbearing. Specifically, the smaller the completed family size, the longer the ultimate birth interval; and ultimate birth intervals increase across cohorts controlling CEB and parity. But spacing appears to represent an additional strategy of fertility limitation. Thus, it may be necessary to distinguish spacing and stopping behavior if one wishes to clarify behavioral patterns within a population (Edlefsen, 1981; Friedlander et al., 1980; Rodriguez and Hobcraft, 1980). Because fertility transition theories imply increased attempts to limit family sizes, it is important to examine differential behavior within subgroups achieving different family sizes. It is this level of analysis which we have attempted to achieve in utilizing parity-specific birth intervals controlled by children ever born.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Quantitative aspects of marriage,fertility and family limitation in nineteenth century America: Another application of the coale specifications

This paper deals with three aspects of the decline in the fertility of white women in the United States from 1800 to 1920. The first concerns the portion of the secular decline in the total fertility rate which was due to changes in marriage rates and the portion due to decreases in marital fertility rates. The second concerns the fraction of couples in the nineteenth century who acted effectively to reduce their fertility and the third deals with the importance of abortion as a family-limiting practice among white couples in the nineteenth century.     

Environmental and socioeconomic determinants of neonatal mortality in a northern Italian city in the early nineteenth century

Population and Environment - The research explores the effects of the environment on neonatal mortality in the early nineteenth century, controlling for social and economic factors. Individual...     

Family size and the quality of children

If couples decide to have fewer children in order to achieve higher “quality” offspring, are they correct in assuming that the quality of children bears an important and inverse relation to family size? If they are correct, how does number of children operate to affect individual quality? This research (using U.S. whites primarily) takes educational attainment (among adults) and college plans (among youngsters) as the principal indicators of quality, but also directs some attention to measures of intelligence. The analysis supports the “dilution model” (on average, the more children the lower the quality of each child) and indicates that only children do not suffer from lack of siblings, and that other last-borns are not handicapped by a “teaching deficit.” Number of siblings (relative to other background variables) is found to have an important detrimental impact on child quality—an impact compounded by the fact that, when couples are at a stage in life to make family-size decisions, most background factors (however important to the quality of their children) are no longer readily manipulable. A special path analysis of college plans among boys uses a modification of Sewell’s Wisconsin Model as its base. The results show that number of siblings is a negative influence on intervening variables affecting college plans. In general, the research documents the unfavorable consequences for individual siblings of high fertility, even in a country that is (at least for whites) as socially, economically, and politically advantaged as the United States.     

Occupations,migration, sex ratios,and nuptiality in nineteenth century English communities: A model of relationships

Two effects of occupational structure on nuptiality levels are examined: a direct functional effect related to the influence of socioeconomic characteristics on the feasibility and desirability of marriage, and an indirect structural effect related to nuptiality levels via sex selective migration patterns and population sex ratios. Our analysis shows that nuptiality levels in nineteenth century English and Welsh districts were responsive to occupational variation and that both direct and indirect effects were significant. Our results suggest that socioeconomic factors, often overlooked in favor of cultural explanation, must be considered in the analysis of nuptiality.     

Family size and maternal health: evidence from the One-Child policy in China

In this paper, we examine the impact of family size on maternal health outcomes by exploiting the tremendous change in family size under the One-Child policy in China. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1993–2006, we find that mothers with fewer children have a higher calorie intake and a lower probability of being underweight and having low blood pressure; meanwhile, they have a higher probability of being overweight. This would occur if a smaller family size increases the food consumption of mothers, leading underweight women to attain a normal weight and normal weight women becoming overweight. Robust tests are performed to provide evidence on the hypothesis that the tradeoff between children’s quantity and mother’s “quality” is through a budget constraint mechanism, that is, having more children decreases the resource allocated to mothers and affects their health outcomes.