Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17475
Authors: Gregory Clark; Neil Cummins; Matthew Curtis
Abstract: Eric Turkheimer famously stated as a Law, "All human behavioral traits are heritable." But this poses a puzzle for pre-industrial demographicsystems, such as the European Marriage Pattern, where individuals made behavioral choices that limited fertility. Why were these behaviors not replaced over time with those that generated higher fertility? Some have argued the solution to this puzzle is that limited fertility in the first generation was actually maximal fertility in subsequent generations. But we show that there was no fertility penalty to future generations from higher fertility in the initial generation in both England and Quebec. Here we argue instead that the European Marriage Pattern survived for more than 500 years because, for pre-industrial fertility behavior, Turkheimer's Law does not hold. Even though at the social level fertility limiting behaviors transmitted strongly, there was scant familial inheritance of fertility choices. So fertility enhancing deviations did not get transmitted within families across generations, and the European Marriage Pattern could persist indefinitely. In the paper we show evidence consistent with horizontal as opposed to vertical transmission of fertility behaviors.
Keywords: European marriage pattern; preindustrial fertility limitation; horizontal cultural transmission
JEL Codes: N33; J12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| lack of familial inheritance of fertility behaviors (J12) | persistence of the European marriage pattern (J12) |
| fertility-limiting behaviors transmitted socially (J13) | lack of fertility-enhancing behaviors being passed down (J13) |
| lack of heritability (C92) | maintenance of the European marriage pattern (J12) |
| community norms influence average age at marriage (J12) | less influence from parental behaviors (D19) |
| younger marrying women with higher net fertility (J12) | no significant influence on marriage ages of daughters or daughters-in-law (J12) |
| weak intergenerational transmission of marriage behaviors (J12) | persistence of the European marriage pattern (J12) |