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Malthus in the bedroom : birth spacing as a preventive check mechanism in pre-modern England

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Cinnirella, Francesco , Klemp, Marc P. B. and Weisdorf, Jacob L. (2013) Malthus in the bedroom : birth spacing as a preventive check mechanism in pre-modern England. Working Paper. Coventry, UK: Department of Economics, University of Warwick. CAGE Online Working Paper Series, Volume 2013 (Number 174).

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Abstract

The role of demography in long-run economic growth has been subject to increasing attention.
This paper questions the received wisdom that marital birth control was absent before the
nineteenth century. Using an extensive individual-level dataset covering 270,000 births from
80,000 families we show that higher national and sector-specific real wages reduced spacing
between births in England over more than three centuries, from 1540-1850. This effect is present
among both poor and rich families and is robust to a wide range of control variables accounting
for external factors influencing a couple’s fertility such as malnutrition, climate shocks and the
disease environment.

Item Type: Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Alternative Title:
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Industrial revolution -- Great Britain -- History, Fertility, Human -- Great Britain, Demography -- Great Britain, Population -- Economic aspects
Series Name: CAGE Online Working Paper Series
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Place of Publication: Coventry, UK
Official Date: October 2013
Volume: Volume 2013
Number: Number 174
Number of Pages: 35
Status: Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Funder: European Research Council (ERC), Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Grant number: 240928 (ERC)

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