Marital fertility and wealth during the fertility transition: ruralFrance, 1750–1850

Abstract

It has been long established that the demographic transition began in eighteenth‐century France, yet there is no consensus on exactly why fertility declined. This analysis links fertility life histories to wealth at death data for four rural villages in France, 1750–1850. For the first time, the wealth–fertility relationship during the onset of the French fertility decline can be analysed. Where fertility is declining, wealth is a powerful predictor of smaller family size. This article argues that fertility decline in France was a result of changing levels of economic inequality, associated with the 1789 Revolution. In cross‐section, the data support this hypothesis: where fertility is declining, economic inequality is lower than where fertility is high.

Survival of the Richest? Social Status, Fertility, and Social Mobility in England 1541-1824

“…A major problem for us with the Cambridge records is that they include no direct information on the wealth of families: Clark and Hamilton (2006), Clark (2007), Cummins (2009) andCummins (2010) all use wealth as the predictor of net fertility. However, the fact that the Cambridge data records parental occupation enables us to do a comparison of reproductive success based on occupational status.…”

Socioeconomic and religious differentials in marital fertility during the fertility transition: A micro-level study from Western Hungary, 1850–1939

“…Prior to the demographic transition, therefore, the birth intervals were the longest among the labourers and were the shortest in the local middle class, but these results are not statistically significant. More precisely, there is no strong evidence that the latter group was the most likely to reproduce itself in the demographic sense (Cummins, 2012). In conjunction with the development of transition, birth intervals in the upper social groups were gradually prolonged and short birth intervals become characteristic of labourers.…”

“…Scholars mostly agree that the positive association between socioeconomic status and fertility reversed during the transition, and those with a higher social status began to decrease their family size (Livi-Bacci, 1986;Skirbekk, 2008;Cummins, 2012;Bengtsson and Dribe, 2014; for more recent results see : Breschi, Fornasin and Manfredin, 2014;Maloney, Hanson and Smith, 2014;Vézina, Gauvreau and Gagnon, 2014;Reher and Sanz-Gimeno, 2007).…”

Landowning, Status and Population Growth

“…For the new rural bourgeoisie class, fertility control supplied a powerful method for social rise. Thus, it is likely that the fertility decline in France was due to the decline in the child demand among the peasants (Gummins 2012). Furthermore, by associating early wealth and fertility data, Gummings shows that those peasants who had the greatest land property also had the lowest fertility and their fertility decline was the fastest, indicating that status-seeking may have played an important role.…”

“…It shows that fertility declined sharply at the time of the land reform during the Great Revolution 1789-1799, while no land reform occurred in England or Germany: in 1830, 63% of the population was landowning peasants in France, while in Britain the share of landowners was only 14% (Chesnais 1992, p. 337). Actually, the widespread ownership of land was a unique feature of France (Gummins 2012). For the new rural bourgeoisie class, fertility control supplied a powerful method for social rise.…”