Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP9116
Authors: Francesco Cinnirella; Marc P. B. Klemp; Jacob Weisdorf
Abstract: We question the received wisdom that birth limitation was absent among historical populations before the fertility transition of the late nineteenth-century. Using duration and panel models on individual data, we find a causal negative effect of living standards on birth spacing in the three centuries preceding England's fertility transition. While the effect could be driven by biology in the case of the poor, a significant effect among the rich suggests that spacing worked as a control mechanism in pre-modern England. Our findings support the Malthusian preventive check hypothesis and rationalize England's historical leadership as a low population-pressure, high-wage economy.
Keywords: birth intervals; fertility limitation; natural fertility; preventive check; spacing
JEL Codes: J11; J13; N33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| lower living standards (I31) | longer birth intervals (J19) |
| real wages (J31) | longer birth intervals (J19) |
| wheat prices (Q11) | longer birth intervals (J19) |
| falling real wages (E25) | increase age at first marriage (J12) |
| falling real wages (E25) | delay first conceptions (J13) |
| lower living standards (I31) | longer birth spacing (J13) |
| longer birth intervals (J19) | preventive checks (E61) |