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Family Income, Mortality, and Fertility on the Eve of the Demographic Transition: A Case Study of Rosny-Sous-Bois

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  • Weir, David R.

Abstract

This article combines uniquely detailed household-level tax assessments with reconstituted family histories for an eighteenth-century agricultural village near Paris. The tax records reveal substantial diversity in income among taxpayers despite the exemptions given privileged landowners. High-income households had significantly lower levels of infant and adult mortality, earlier age at marriage of the wife, and slightly lower rates of emigration by their surviving children. Marital fertility was high at all income levels. These classic Malthusian patterns were found at the household level more than a generation after the last great subsistence crises and resulted in a much higher local rate of replacement for the better-off families.

Suggested Citation

  • Weir, David R., 1995. "Family Income, Mortality, and Fertility on the Eve of the Demographic Transition: A Case Study of Rosny-Sous-Bois," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 1-26, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:55:y:1995:i:01:p:1-26_04
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    Cited by:

    1. S. Ryan Johansson, 2010. "Medics, Monarchs and Mortality, 1600-1800: Origins of the Knowledge-Driven Health Transition in Europe," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _085, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Clark, Gregory & Hamilton, Gillian, 2006. "Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 707-736, September.
    3. Masako Kimura & Daishin Yasui, 2012. "Public Policy and the Income-Fertility Relationship in Economic Development," Discussion Papers 1224, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    4. Daishin Yasui, 2014. "A Theory of the Cross-Sectional Fertility Differential: Jobs f Heterogeneity Approach," Discussion Papers 1409, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    5. Christoph Sax, 2011. "Constraint or choice? Disentangling fertility determinants by switching regressions," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 25(23), pages 723-754.
    6. Cummins, Neil, 2020. "The micro-evidence for the Malthusian system. France, 1670–1840," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. S. Ryan Johansson, 2010. "Medics, Monarchs and Mortality, 1600-1800: Origins of the Knowledge-Driven Health Transition in Europe," Economics Series Working Papers Number85, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Bandyopadhyay, Sanghamitra & Green, Elliott, 2013. "Fertility and wealth in early colonial India: Evidence from widow suicides (satis) in Bengal," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 302-304.
    9. Larry E. Jones & Alice Schoonbroodt & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Fertility Theories: Can They Explain the Negative Fertility-Income Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 43-100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Larry E. Jones & Michele Tertilt, 2006. "An Economic History of Fertility in the U.S.: 1826-1960," NBER Working Papers 12796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Tommy Murphy, 2015. "Old habits die hard (sometimes)," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 177-222, June.
    12. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Elliott Green, 2013. "On the Relationship Between Fertility and Wealth: Evidence from Widow Suicides (Satis) in Early Colonial India," Working Papers 41, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    13. Daishin Yasui, 2017. "A Theory Of The Cross‐Sectional Fertility Differential: Job Heterogeneity Approach," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(1), pages 287-306, February.
    14. Clark, Gregory & Hamilton, Gillian, 2006. "Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(03), pages 707-736, September.
    15. Blanc, Guillaume & Wacziarg, Romain, 2020. "Change and persistence in the Age of Modernization: Saint-Germain-d’Anxure, 1730–1895," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Tommy E. Murphy, 2010. "Persistence of Malthus or Persistence in Malthus? Mortality, Income, and Marriage in the French Fertility Decline of the Long Nineteenth Century?," Working Papers 363, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.

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