Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England

Francesco Cinnirella, Marc Klemp and Jacob Weisdorf

No 3936, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We question the received wisdom that birth limitation was absent among historical populations before the fertility transition of the late nineteenth-century. Using duration and panel models on family-level data, we find a causal, negative short-run effect of living standards on birth spacing in the three centuries preceding England’s fertility transition. While the effect could be driven by biology in the case of the poor, a significant effect among the rich suggests that spacing worked as a control mechanism in pre-modern England. Our findings support the Malthusian preventive check hypothesis and rationalize England’s historical leadership as a low population-pressure, high-wage economy.

Keywords: spacing; birth intervals; fertility; limitation; natural fertility; preventive check (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J13 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England (2013)
Working Paper: Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England (2012)
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