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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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Text (Working paper)
WRAP_174-2013_cinnirella.pdf - Published Version Download (632Kb) | Preview |
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| Status: | Not Peer Reviewed |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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