Did the Black Death cause economic development by ‘inventing’ fertility restriction?

Land use and management in the upland demesne of the De Lacy estate of Blackburnshire c. 1300

Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie

Oxford Economic Papers, 2022, vol. 74, issue 4, 1228-1246

Abstract: The Black Death is claimed to have caused the European Marriage Pattern in England by raising pastoral wages and thus delaying female marriage. We show that this argument does not hold. There is no consensus that late female marriage emerged in rural England after the Black Death. Women wanting to do pastoral work in medieval England did not have to remain unmarried, so improved pastoral opportunities did not necessitate later marriage. Nor does the quantitative relationship between pastoralism and female marriage age in England provide support for this argument. Fertility restriction was not exogenously triggered by the Black Death.

JEL-codes: E02 J12 J13 N13 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Working Paper: Did the Black Death Cause Economic Development by "Inventing" Fertility Restriction? (2018)
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