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

Richard, Paul

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1752124

Cited by 14 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Similarly, Clark (2007) showed that the number of surviving children was higher among wealthier people (at the time of their death) in preindustrial England, but these differences diminished well before the fertility transition (see also Clark and Cummins 2009, 2015). Similar findings have been made for France (Cummins 2013) and England using occupational data from family reconstitutions (Boberg-Fazlic et al 2011). There is also evidence from other contexts of low fertility in high-status groups in pre-transitional society (e.g., Sogner et al 1984; Schneider and Schneider 1996).…”

Section: Theory and Previous Researchsupporting

confidence: 80%

Socio-economic status and fertility decline: Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

et al. 2016

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We have good knowledge of the timing of the historical fertility transitions in different regions, but we know much less regarding specific features and causes. In this study, we used longitudinal micro-level data for five local populations in Europe and North America to study the relationship between socioeconomic status and fertility during the transition. Using the same analytical model and identical class scheme, we examined the development of socioeconomic differences in marital fertility and related it to common theories on fertility behaviour. Our results do not provide support for the hypothesis of universally high fertility among the upper classes in pre-transitional society but support the idea that they acted as forerunners in the transition by reducing their fertility before other groups. Farmers and unskilled workers were latest to start to limit their fertility. Apart from this regularity, the patterns of class differences in fertility varied significantly among populations.

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Section: Theory and Previous Researchsupporting

confidence: 80%

Socio-economic status and fertility decline: Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

et al. 2016

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“…Clark and Hamilton (2006) found a substantial fertility-income gradient in pre-industrial England. This finding was echoed in work by Boberg-Fazlic et al (2011) who like Clark and Hamilton (2006) found a positive income-fertility relationship in pre-1800 England. Cinnirella et al (2013) showed how this mechanism operates in the short run, as families in pre-industrial England respond to short-term economic stress by increasing birth spacing thus lowering fertility.…”

Section: Theory and Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 88%

Human capital and the quantity–quality trade-off during the demographic transition

Fernihough

2016

J Econ Growth

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This paper provides an empirical test of the child quantity-quality (QQ) tradeoff predicted by unified growth theory. Using individual census returns from the 1911 Irish census, we examine whether children who attended school were from smaller families-as predicted by a standard QQ model. To measure causal effects, we use a selection of models robust to endogeneity concerns which we validate for this application using an Empirical Monte Carlo analysis. Our results show that a child remaining in school between the ages of 14 and 16 caused up to a 27 % reduction in fertility. Our results are robust to alternative estimation techniques with different modeling assumptions, sample selection, and alternative definitions of fertility. These findings highlight the importance of the demographic transition as a mechanism which underpinned the expansion in human capital witnessed in Western economies during the twentieth century.

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“…Earlier ages at marriage and decreased birth intervals from 1750 to 1850 led to a population boom that fueled the industrial labor force (Boberg-Fazlic, Sharp, & Weisdorf, 2011;Stevenson, 1993), but may have also increased the likelihood of maternal mortality. Earlier ages at marriage and decreased birth intervals from 1750 to 1850 led to a population boom that fueled the industrial labor force (Boberg-Fazlic, Sharp, & Weisdorf, 2011;Stevenson, 1993), but may have also increased the likelihood of maternal mortality.…”

Section: Sex and Age At Deathmentioning

confidence: 99%

The intersections of industrialization: Variation in skeletal indicators of frailty by age, sex, and socioeconomic status in 18th‐ and 19th‐century England

Yaussy

2019

American J Phys Anthropol

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Objectives: Intersectionality theory argues that various categories of identity and forms of systemic oppression interact and produce inequalities in resource access, economic opportunities, and health outcomes. However, there has been little explicit engagement with this theory by bioarchaeologists examining disparate health outcomes in the past. This study examines the associations among frailty, age at death, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES) in 18th-and 19th-century England. Materials and methods: The sample for this study comes from four industrial-era cemeteries from England, ca. 1711-1857. The associations among adult age (18+ years), SES, sex, and three skeletal indicators of stress (dental enamel hypoplasia [DEH, n = 293], cribra orbitalia [CO, n = 457], periosteal lesions [PNB, n = 436]) are examined using hierarchical log-linear analysis.Results: Significant interactions existed among the variables examined for two skeletal indicators: high SES females had lower frequencies of CO relative to other groups and males between ages 30-45 years exhibited higher frequencies of PNB compared to females or males of older or younger ages, regardless of SES. Additionally, sex and SES were consistently associated with age at death.Conclusions: These results suggest that patterns of stress indicators cannot be examined solely across unilateral axes of age, SES, or sex. Intersecting axes of privilege, marginalization, and structural oppression may have buffered high SES females from some negative health outcomes (CO) while predisposing them to others (risk of maternal mortality). Likewise, the hazardous working conditions relegated to adult males may have heightened the risk of injury, infection, and death for middle-aged men in industrial-era England. K E Y W O R D Sbioarchaeology, hierarchical log-linear analysis, intersectionality, mortality, paleopathology

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

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

Socio-economic status and fertility decline: Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

Socio-economic status and fertility decline: Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

Human capital and the quantity–quality trade-off during the demographic transition

The intersections of industrialization: Variation in skeletal indicators of frailty by age, sex, and socioeconomic status in 18th‐ and 19th‐century England

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