The patriarchy index: a comparative study of power relations across historical Europe

Gruber

et al. 2016

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In this article, we present a new measure for use in cross-cultural studies of family-driven age-and gender-related inequalities. This composite measure, which we call the Patriarchy Index, combines a range of variables related to familial behaviour that reflect varying degrees of sex-and age-related social inequality across different family settings. We demonstrate the comparative advantages of the index by showing how 266 historical populations living in regions stretching from the Atlantic coast of Europe to Moscow scored on the patriarchy scale. We then compare the index with contemporary measures of gender discrimination, and find a strong correlation between historical and current inequality patterns. Finally, we explore how variation in patriarchy levels across Europe is related to the socio-economic and institutional characteristics of the regional populations, and to variation across these regions in their degree of demographic centrality and in their environmental conditions. Overall, the results of our study confirm previous findings that family organisation is a crucial generator of social inequality, and point to the importance of considering the historical context when analysing the current global contours of inequality.

Section: Patriarchy and Its Composite Measurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Patriarchy Index: a new measure of gender and generational inequalities in the past

Gruber

et al. 2016

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“…In order to account for hierarchical social structures across Mosaic societies we used a recently developed measure known as the Patriarchy Index (henceforth: PI) that reflects varying degrees of sex-and age-related social inequality across different family settings (Szo»tysek et al 2017a;Gruber and Szo»tysek 2016). The index combines ten variables grouped in four "domains"-the domination of men over women, the domination of the older generation over the younger generation, the extent of patrilocality, and the preference for sons, into a composite measure constructed on the basis of information contained in Mosaic data and at the level of resolution of meso-regions as defined in this paper.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Age heaping patterns in Mosaic data

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdiscipli

Gruber

2017

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This paper analyzes the extent and nature of age-misreporting in the Mosaic data, currently one of the largest historical census microdata infrastructures for continental Europe. We use demographic measures known as the age heaping indexes to explore regional, periodic and sex-specific patterns of age misreporting across 115 Mosaic regional datafiles, from Catalonia to Moscow, during Europe's demographic ancien r egime and thereafter. The paper's second significant contribution is the comparison of Mosaic-based results to those derived from two other big census data projects-IPUMS and NAPP. Beyond this exploratory data analysis, we also investigate possible sources of variation in age heaping across Mosaic data by examining how it relates to variability in socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental conditions. Overall, our systematic inquiry into quality of age reporting in Mosaic consolidates the project's potentially transformative role in comparative historical family demography and suggests some avenues for future research.

“…"normative solidarity") are also likely to induce variation across regions in patterns of co-residence among the elderly (Reher 1998;Palloni 2001, 86-88), but these preferences are particularly difficult to measure for past societies. As an indirect measure of such attitudes we used the sons' preference index developed by Gruber and Szołtysek (2016). 15 Given that a wide range of cross-cultural research has found that the preference for sons is a good indicator of intergenerational solidarity (e.g.…”

Section: Local-level Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making a Place for Space: A Demographic Spatial Perspective on Living Arrangements Among the Elderly in Historical Europe

Ogórek²,

et al. 2019

Eur J Population

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Much of the previous scholarship on the historical living arrangements of the aged has taken place without the benefit of large-scale harmonised census microdata and did not embrace even rudimentary forms of spatial modelling. Drawing on the pooled cross-sectional census microdata from the North Atlantic Population and Mosaic projects, we derive measures of intergenerational co-residence among the elderly for 277 regional populations from Catalonia to the Urals during the demographic ancien régime and thereafter. To examine the historical geography of living arrangements among the elderly, the spatial patterns in our data are assessed using formal tools of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis. To investigate the extent to which the observed regional patterns are attributable to underlying demographic, socioeconomic, or environmental variability, we specified a series of the OLS regression models and applied the Local Indicators of Spatial Association to the models' residuals in order to identify the spatial clusters that cannot be explained by the chosen set of predictors. Our findings reveal considerable variability in the living arrangements of the elderly in historic Europe. This variability does not align very neatly with the geographic patterns predicted by earlier historical demographic literature and partly persists even after controlling for contextual factors. Our bottom-line results suggest that when seeking to untangle the dynamics of European family systems, greater spatial awareness is indispensable.