Do fertility transitions influence infant mortality declines? Evidence from early modern Germany

Alan Fernihough and Mark McGovern

Journal of Population Economics, 2014, vol. 27, issue 4, 1145-1163

Abstract: The timing and sequencing of fertility transitions and early-life mortality declines in historical Western societies indicate that reductions in sibship (number of siblings) may have contributed to improvements in infant health. Surprisingly, however, this demographic relationship has received little attention in empirical research. We outline the difficulties associated with establishing the effect of sibship on infant mortality and discuss the inherent bias associated with conventional empirical approaches. We offer a solution that permits an empirical test of this relationship while accounting for reverse causality and potential omitted variable bias. Our approach is illustrated by evaluating the causal impact of family size on infant mortality using genealogical data from 13 German parishes spanning the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Overall, our findings do not support the hypothesis that declining fertility led to increased infant survival probabilities in historical populations. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Keywords: Demographic transition; Family size; Early life conditions; Infant mortality; D13; I15; J13; O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Working Paper: Do Fertility Transitions Influence Infant Mortality Declines? Evidence from Early Modern Germany (2014)
Working Paper: Do Fertility Transitions Influence Infant Mortality Declines? Evidence from Early Modern Germany (2013)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-014-0506-z

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