When Smaller Families Look Contagious: A Spatial Look At The French Fertility Decline Using An Agent-Based Simulation Model

Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon and Tommy E. Murphy
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Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon: Nuffield College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford

No _071, Oxford University Economic and Social History Series from Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Abstract: Despite some disagreements about specific timing, it is now widely accepted that France was the first European country to experience a systematic decline in fertility, a decline that took place in a very distinctive geographical pattern. Whereas two areas of low birth rates (the Seine valley and the Aquitaine region) kept spreading, two ‘islands’ of high fertility (Bretagne and the Massif Central) shrank until they more or less disappeared in the early 1900s. In an attempt to provide a sensible explanation of this pattern, we build an agent-based simulation model which incorporates both historical data on population characteristics and spatial information on the geography of France, and allows us to study the role of social influence in fertility decisions. We assess how different behavioural assumptions and network topologies cause variations in diffusion patterns, using quantitative data on the Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 to proxy for the impact the Revolution. Analysis of several simulations shows that a combination of both endogenous and exogenous factors help to explain the way in which the diffusion took place and suggests some of the mechanisms through which this was materialised.

Keywords: Economic history; demographic history (Europe pre-1913); France; demographic economics; fertility; simulation models (agent-based); diffusion. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N33 J13 C15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp and nep-ure
Date: 2008-09-02
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