IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/man/sespap/2309.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume Blanc

Abstract

This research shows that secularization accounts for the remarkably early fertility decline in France. The demographic transition, a turning point in history and an essential condition for development, first took hold in France, before the French Revolution and more than a century earlier than in any other country. Why it happened so early is one of the ‘big questions of history’ because it challenges traditional explanations and because of data limitations. Using a novel dataset crowdsourced from publicly available genealogies, I comprehensively document, for the first time, the decline in fertility and its timing with a representative sample of the population. Then, drawing on a wide range of sources and data, I document an important process of secularization in the eighteenth century and find a strong and robust association with the timing of the transition across regions and individuals. Finally, I discuss the persistent impact of the transition on economic growth and explore the drivers of secularization.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume Blanc, 2023. "The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2309, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:man:sespap:2309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-2309.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mara P. Squicciarini & Nico Voigtländer, 2016. "Knowledge Elites and Modernization: Evidence from Revolutionary France," NBER Working Papers 22779, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Dominique Dinet, 1991. "Une déchristianisation provinciale au XVIIIe siècle : le diocèse d'Auxerre," Histoire, économie & société, Programme National Persée, vol. 10(4), pages 467-489.
    3. Davide Cantoni & Jeremiah Dittmar & Noam Yuchtman, 2018. "Religious Competition and Reallocation: the Political Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 2037-2096.
    4. Faustine Perrin, 2022. "On the origins of the demographic transition: rethinking the European marriage pattern," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(3), pages 431-475, September.
    5. de la Croix, David & Perrin, Faustine, 2018. "How far can economic incentives explain the French fertility and education transition?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 221-245.
    6. Weir, David R., 1984. "Life Under Pressure: France and England, 1670–1870," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 27-47, March.
    7. Jutta Bolt & Jan Luiten Zanden, 2014. "The Maddison Project: collaborative research on historical national accounts," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 627-651, August.
    8. repec:cai:popine:popu_p1973_28n4-5_0924 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:cai:popine:popu_p1975_30n1_0142 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory and Comparative Development," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 2, pages 9-21, April-Jun.
    11. Mara P. Squicciarini & Nico Voigtländer, 2015. "Human Capital and Industrialization: Evidence from the Age of Enlightenment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1825-1883.
    12. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimarães & Tom Zylkin, 2020. "Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 95-115, March.
    13. Tommy Murphy, 2015. "Old habits die hard (sometimes)," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 177-222, June.
    14. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    15. Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2019. "Human Genealogy Reveals a Selective Advantage to Moderate Fecundity," Working Papers 2019-1, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    16. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    17. Joel Mokyr, 2016. "A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10835.
    18. Sandra González-Bailón & Tommy E. Murphy, 2013. "The effects of social interactions on fertility decline in nineteenth-century France: An agent-based simulation experiment," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 67(2), pages 135-155, July.
    19. repec:cai:popine:popu_p1975_30n1_0064 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guillaume Blanc, 2023. "​The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France," Working Papers hal-02318180, HAL.
    2. 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).
    3. Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle & Prettner, Klaus & Tscheuschner, Paul, 2023. "The scientific revolution and its implications for long-run economic development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Fabian Siuda & Uwe Sunde, 2021. "Disease and demographic development: the legacy of the plague," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-30, March.
    5. de la Croix, David & Perrin, Faustine, 2018. "How far can economic incentives explain the French fertility and education transition?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 221-245.
    6. Guillaume Blanc, 2020. "Demographic Change and Development from Crowdsourced Genealogies in Early Modern Europe," Working Papers hal-02922398, HAL.
    7. Thomas Baudin & David de la Croix, 2024. "The Emergence of the Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff - insights from early modern academics," Working Papers 2024-iFlame-01, IESEG School of Management.
    8. Guillaume Blanc & Masahiro Kubo, 2023. "French," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2308, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    9. Diebolt, Claude & Mishra, Tapas & Perrin, Faustine, 2021. "Gender empowerment as an enforcer of individuals’ choice between education and fertility: Evidence from 19th century France," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 408-438.
    10. David de la Croix & Faustine Perrin, 2016. "French Fertility and Education Transition: Rational Choice vs. Cultural Diffusion," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2016007, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    11. Tommy Murphy, 2015. "Old habits die hard (sometimes)," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 177-222, June.
    12. Thomas Baudin & Robert Stelter, 2022. "The rural exodus and the rise of Europe," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 365-414, September.
    13. Timothy W. Guinnane & Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, 2013. "A Two-Tiered Demographic System: "Insiders" and "Outsiders" in Three Swabian Communities, 1558-1914," Working Papers 1021, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    14. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    15. Raphael Franck & Oded Galor, 2018. "Flowers of Evil? Industrialization and Long Run Development," Working Papers 2018-7, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    16. Katharina Mühlhoff, 2022. "Darwin beats malthus: evolutionary anthropology, human capital and the demographic transition," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(3), pages 575-614, September.
    17. David de la Croix & Matthias Doepke & Joel Mokyr, 2018. "Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Preindustrial Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 1-70.
    18. Chu, Angus C. & Peretto, Pietro F., 2023. "Innovation and inequality from stagnation to growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    19. Adrian Palacios-Mateo, 2023. "Education and household decision-making in Spanish mining communities, 1877–1924," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(2), pages 301-340, May.
    20. Claude Diebolt & Audrey-Rose Menard & Faustine Perrin, 2016. "Behind the Fertility-Education Nexus: What Triggered the French Development Process?," Working Papers 03-16, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fertility; development; secularization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:man:sespap:2309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marianne Sensier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.