Suchergebnisse

Résumé Cet article porte sur la relation existant entre richesse et fécondité dans un village toscan à la démographie pré-transitionnelle, Casalguidi au milieu du xix e siècle. Cet enjeu est très important en démographie historique car les grands traits des populations caractérisées par une fécondité naturelle et l'absence de contrôle volontaire des naissances ne sont pas encore tous dévoilés. Grâce à des données à l'échelle micro, nous reconstruisons non seulement les parcours de vie individuels et familiaux des habitants de Casalguidi, mais encore nous disposons de leur niveau de richesse année après année. Nos résultats suggèrent que dans cette population rurale toscane, il existait des différences de fécondité en fonction de la richesse dès avant que la transition démographique ne commence. Les mères vivant dans des ménages aisés étaient marquées par une fécondité supérieure à celle des couches les plus pauvres. Ce trait entretenait aussi un lien avec la mortalité infantile inférieure des familles riches.

In this study, we investigate the extent to which social norms and cultural constraints might affect the genetic contribution of remarriage to future generations in a mid–19th century Italian population. By reconstructing the life histories of the inhabitants of Casalguidi, 1,028 marriages were recorded and analyzed. Frequency and reproductive pattern of remarriages were found to play a quantitatively important role in the process of population renewal, featuring 20 percent of total unions and 12 percent of total children borne between 1820–58. Cultural patterns shaped the access to remarriage, but widows resulted more open than widowers in the partner choice. Furthermore, remarriages were more likely consanguineous than first unions because of socioeconomic reasons. As a result, a genotypic differentiation between the offspring of first marriage and remarriage was found. However, the lower intensity of female remarriage and the predominance of widowers' unions limited the potential differentiation in the gene pool of offspring.

Season of birth may influence considerably children's survival. This study extends the analysis that the Authors have already carried out on the Italian regions and Savoy to other countries : Russia, Low Countries, Belgium and Switzerland. The data refer to the second half of the 19th century. It is in Italy that differential mortality according to season of birth is larger (maximum differential in the Venetia region), followed by Russia and Switzerland. Climate's influence (cold in winter and heat in the summer) combine its effects with social customs typical of each country, age and weaning, other customs concerning children's survival. These different combinations determine some unexpected results in the various countries. In the final part of the paper, data derived from family reconstitution of two Tuscan villages (1790-1916) are analysed in order to build a simple model measuring the net impact of climate on mortality during the first two years of life.

ABSTRACT: This article presents a brief synthesis of our knowledge about the evolution of fertility in Italy. The late start of the demographic transition in Italy, compared with other countries of western Europe, was due to the persistence of high mortality levels and Italy's particular vulnerability to fluctuations and crises up until the 1870s. This situation prevented fertility limitation, which had been practiced in small areas and groups earlier in the nineteenth century, from spreading among the rest of the population until the end of century. Once underway, fertility limitation spread from the Central-North to the South, from west to east, and from urban to rural areas. As a consequence of this process, a peak of variability in Italian fertility patterns was reached during the 1930s, when areas and categories with very low fertility levels coexisted with others in which natural fertility still prevailed.

This article presents a brief synthesis of our knowledge about the evolution of fertility in Italy. The late start of the demographic transition in Italy, compared with other countries of western Europe, was due to the persistence of high mortality levels and Italy's particular vulnerability to fluctuations and crises up until the 1870s. This situation prevented fertility limitation, which had been practiced in small areas and groups earlier in the nineteenth century, from spreading among the rest of the population until the end of century. Once underway, fertility limitation spread from the Central-North to the South, from west to east, and from urban to rural areas. As a consequence of this process, a peak of variability in Italian fertility patterns was reached during the 1930s, when areas and categories with very low fertility levels coexisted with others in which natural fertility still prevailed.

Résumé Breschi Marco et Livi Bacci Massimo. — Saison et climat comme contraintes de la survie des enfants. L'expérience italienne au xix* siècle. Puisque la mortalité infantile ancienne dépendait des conditions climatiques, elle devait varier selon le mois de naissance. C'est effectivement ce que Ton met en évidence aussi bien à partir des statistiques officielles (de 1863 à 1882, les décès ont été publiés en Italie avec un double classement par âge et mois de naissance) qu'à l'aide de la reconstitution des familles dans deux villages italiens. L'hiver est particulièrement dangereux pour les plus jeunes nourrissons. Là où il est dur et où les moyens de lutter contre le froid sont rudimentaires, la génération d'hiver est sévèrement fauchée. L'été est moins meurtrier, mais ses effets jouent sur une plus grande gamme d'âge et se conjuguent à ceux du sevrage. La probabilité de passer le cap de la première année, et dans une moindre mesure, des années suivantes, dépend alors du mois de naissance, comme les calculs de l'article le montrent avec netteté.

AbstractThis article looks at the key factors affecting the connection between peasant family size and farm size in Italy in 1930–1931. The association between farm size and family size was analyzed using a new dataset merging data drawn from both the Population Census of 1931 and the Census of Agriculture of 1930. We found a strict association between peasant family size, here considered as a production unit, and the surface area of the farm. The results seem to correspond to different causal relationship between family size and farm size according to access to land, and form of tenure. In some contexts, where sharecropping was widespread, farm size defines the size of the family. In others where small land ownership prevailed, it seems that family size shapes the size of the farm. In this study we propose a new explanation for peasant family size in the Fascist period. This is done adopting a cross-sectional perspective, providing a geographical analysis based on the 786 agrarian areas that formed the national territory in that period.

AbstractEducation has been frequently claimed to shape demographic outcomes. Mortality, fertility, and nuptiality have all been attested to be affected to some extent by education attainment. This article investigates the effects of education on fertility over time in a rural Italian community once controlled for potential confounders. Using individual-level data drawn from various sources, the study analyzes the role of education in shaping reproductive behaviors not only during the demographic transition (1890–1960) but also in the pretransitional period (1819–59). The results highlight the contrasting effects of literacy on fertility, which passed from a positive association in the ancien régime to a negative one in the transitional phase. Educated couples were therefore forerunners in the process of fertility decline because they were not only in the position to be the most pressed to control reproduction but also because they were likely aware of reproductive mechanisms, had the knowledge of more effective birth-control methods, had the economic possibility to get them, and had the necessary capacity to use them.