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Throughout pre-industrial Europe, the manorial estate was an important institution in the rural economy. Related literature communicates the widespread view that the estates insured their tenants against uncertainties, for example, in times of economic hardship. By distributing grain or accepting deferment of rents, the manors helped to alleviate hunger in times of scarcity. If this insurance was indeed effective, then manorial tenants should have experienced less fluctuation in income or food availability than other peasants. However, there has not been much empirical confirmation that the pre-industrial estates were effective in providing this kind of insurance. This study uses the impact of grain prices on demographic outcomes as a measure of the efficiency of the manorial system in protecting its inhabitants against economic stress. Looking at four hundred parishes in Sweden (1749-1859), the manorial estate seems to have been able to insure its inhabitants against risks of economic stress, but the protective effect was imperfect and only visible in the short term.

RésuméDans toute l'Europe préindustrielle, le domaine manorial était une institution importante de l'économie rurale. Il est une vue largement répandue dans les textes publiés sur le sujet selon laquelle le propriétaire du domaine garantissait les paysans locataires contre les imprévus, par exemple dans les temps de difficulté économique. En distribuant des céréales, ou en acceptant de déférer le paiement de la rente, les seigneurs des domaines aidaient à réduire les effets de la faim dans les périodes de pénurie. Si cette forme d'assurance s'était avérée efficace, alors les paysans locataires des domaines auraient dû subir des fluctuations moins importantes que les autres paysans dans leur revenu ou leur alimentation. On ne rencontre que peu de confirmations empiriques du fait que les domaines de l'ère préindustrielle eussent de fait fourni une assurance de ce type. Cet article utilise l'impact du prix des céréales sur la démographie pour mesurer l'efficacité du système manorial à protéger ses sujets contre le stress économique. En examinant 400 paroisses de Suède (1749-1849), on peut constater que le domaine manorial pouvait certes assurer ses habitants contre les risques de stress économique, mais que l'effet de protection était finalement très imparfait et observable uniquement dans le court terme.

In this article we study the evolution of marriage seasonality in relation to economic change, particularly connected to changes in labour supply and work intensity of the kind implied by the 'industrious revolution'. The focus is on southern Sweden in 1685–1894, which was a period of agricultural transformation and early industrialization, when we would expect to see an increase in work intensity. The analysis is based on about 120,000 marriages from 117 different parishes. The analysis shows that the seasonality of marriage changed dramatically over time, from a classic grain production pattern, with a marriage peak in late spring and a marriage trough at harvest time, to a much more even seasonality, although with the appearance of a very strong peak in December. This change affected rural rather than urban areas, and was present regardless of differences in institutional settings, and for almost all occupational groups below the elite. The changed seasonality pattern is consistent with increasing work intensity over the year, leaving only the weeks around Christmas as a low season. In addition to the increase in work intensity, the privatization of marriage and the availability of time and resources were also important factors in the changing seasonality pattern.

The manorial system was a salient feature of the pre‐industrial economy in Europe from the early middle ages until the late nineteenth century. Despite its importance, it is not usually the main focus of eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century European economic history. Looking at a vital manorial economy, this article deals with land transmissions, a crucial factor in the socioeconomic reproduction of pre‐industrial societies, and demonstrates both similarities and important differences between the tenants on manorial land and freeholders. Although their strategies were often similar, we show that the manorial system consisted of a two‐party government—the landlord and the tenant—whose interests did not always coincide. In the nineteenth century, market expansion and commercialization promoted more active landlord strategies in terms of demesne expansions and by means of implementing short‐term leases. This made intergenerational transfers within the family increasingly difficult for tenants.

When did Europe pull ahead of Asia in terms of living standards? A number of well-known scholars compare economic and demographic indicators of well-being in the pre-industrial period. The emerging picture is not one of great differences, but of considerable similarities in standard of living between Europe and Asia before the Industrial Revolution.

AbstractDespite a large literature on the importance of childhood neighbourhoods for life course transitions, there is a lack of fertility studies combining a life‐course perspective with detailed neighbourhood measures. Addressing this gap, we use longitudinal data in which the entire population of a Swedish town is geocoded at the address‐level, 1939–1967, and linked to national registers from 1968 to 2015. We study how social neighbourhoods in childhood influence fertility outcomes by constructing individual neighbourhoods at the address level to measure the social class of nearby childhood neighbours. We analyse the age at first and last birth, children ever born, birth spacing and childlessness. Growing up in higher‐status neighbourhoods is associated with delayed fertility for both men and women, but no association is found for the number of children ever born or for childlessness. Associations are stable over time, and later ages of neighbourhood exposure matter more, especially for men. Contrary to prior literature's focus on the lower classes, our results are driven by higher‐status individuals growing up in distinctly white‐collar neighbourhoods.

AbstractWith only a few exceptions, the historical study of individual-level correlates of child mortality in the United States has been limited to the period surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, when children ever born and children surviving data collected by the 1900 and 1910 censuses allow indirect estimation of child mortality. The recent release of linked census data, such as the IPUMS MLP datasets, allows a different type of indirect estimation over a longer period. By following couples across subsequent decennial censuses, it is possible to infer child mortality by measuring whether couples' own children in the first census were still present in the second census. We focus our analysis on children aged 1–3 in the first of two linked censuses, who were less likely to be undercounted by the census than infants, and unlikely to be living apart from their parents in the second census. We estimate child mortality over the intervening decade and use OLS regression to correlate that mortality to the residence location and socioeconomic characteristics of their parents' households. We limit our analysis to three panel datasets for married couples linked between the 1850–60, 1860–70, and 1870–80 censuses, when real estate and personal estate wealth data were collected. Our results indicate a significant negative relationship between wealth and child mortality across all regions of the United States and over the entire period examined.

AbstractChildhood poverty increases the likelihood of being poor as an adult. We know relatively little about this persistence of poverty in the past and whether it changed as modern welfare societies developed. This study both analyses determinants of childhood poverty and assesses the association between childhood poverty and economic outcomes in adulthood for men and women who grew up in southern Sweden, and who were followed to adulthood regardless of where in Sweden they resided. Poverty is measured in relative terms. Being raised by a single mother, foreign origin, and being raised in a context where the household head was not employed were important risk factors for childhood poverty. Growing up in relative poverty was in turn associated with low income and education in adulthood. Both the persistence and intensity of childhood poverty mattered, and so did the age during which poverty was experienced. Patterns were similar for men and women, and there was no consistent change over time as the Swedish welfare state expanded.

ABSTRACTThe societal integration of immigrants is a great concern in many of today's Western societies, and has been so for a long time. Whether we look at Europe in 2015 or the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, large flows of immigrants pose challenges to receiving societies. While much research has focused on the socioeconomic integration of immigrants there has been less interest in their demographic integration, even though this can tell us as much about the way immigrants fare in their new home country. In this article we study the disparities in infant and child mortality across nativity groups and generations, using new, high-density census data. In addition to describing differentials and trends in child mortality among 14 immigrant groups relative to the native-born white population of native parentage, we focus special attention on the association between child mortality, immigrant assimilation, and the community-level context of where immigrants lived. Our findings indicate substantial nativity differences in child mortality, but also that factors related to the societal integration of immigrants explains a substantial part of these differentials. Our results also point to the importance of spatial patterns and contextual variables in understanding nativity differentials in child mortality.

(...) Uberoi, Patricia: Kinship varieties and political expediency. Legislating the family in post-independence India. Ravindran, Gopinath: Inheritance, property control and marriage in colonial South-West India. The case of matrilineal Nayars. (...) Li Zhuo: Historical records of Chinese "in-marrying son-in-law". With respect to the status of Chinese women. Shima, Mutsuhiko: Changing household composition in late Choson-period Korea with special reference to female members. Nagata, Mary Louise: Headship and succession in early modern Kyoto. The rolt of women. Yamamoto, Jun: A case study of female primogeniture in pre-modern Japan. Ariga village, 1739-1868. (...)