The Determinants of International Migration in Early Modern Europe: Evidence from the Maritime Sector, c. 1700–1800

Abstract

This article offers the first multivariate regression study of international migration in early modern Europe. Using unique eighteenth-century data about maritime workers, we created a data set of migration flows among European countries to examine the role of factors related to geography, population, language, the market, and chain migration in explaining the migration of these workers across countries. We show that among all factors considered in our multivariate analysis, the geographical characteristics of the destination countries, size of port towns, and past migrations are among the most robust and quantitatively the most important factors influencing cross-country migration flows.

Circular visualisation of historical migration in England in the long eighteenth-century

“…Source: Lincolnshire marriage indexes. 1 Gietel-Basten, S.A., 2020, "Replication Data for: chord diagrams used in analysis of intra-county migration", https://doi.org/10.14711/dataset/RNKQRI, DataSpace@HKUST, V1 Figure 4 shows the distribution of marriage events by the location of the 'home' parish for 25-year periods. Clearly, the vast majority of marriages -94.9%, or between 92.2% (1725-49) and 96.9% (1800-24) over time -occur between couples who marry in their home parish.…”

“…There is no doubt that migration has played a critical role in the development of overall population trends in pre-industrial and industrialising societies [1] such as England [2], as well as heavily influencing the elasticity of labour supply [3], the development of new ideas and attitudes [4] and the development of issues of social order -and opportunity under the auspices of the developing Poor Law system [5,6]. As 'urban sinks' of lower birth rates and higher death rates, towns and cities largely relied on immigration to sustain their growth [7].…”