Marital fertility and wealth in transition era France, 1750-1850

Neil James Cummins

PSE Working Papers from PSE (Ecole normale supérieure)

Abstract: The spectacularly early decline of French fertility is one of the great puzzles of economic history. There are no convincing explanations for why France entered a fertility transition over a century before anywhere else in the world. This analysis links highly detailed individual level fertility life histories to wealth at death data for four rural villages in transition-era France, 1750-1850. The results show that it was the richest groups who reduced their family size first and that they used `spacing' strategies to achieve this. In cross section, measures of the environment for social mobility are strongly associated with the fertility decline. The evidence presented here demonstrates thatsocioeconomic status mattered during the early French fertility decline. This study is a first step towards re-establishing the French experience as paramount in our understanding of Europe's demographic transition.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pse:psecon:2009-16

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