Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTHistorical literacy in Spain is characterised by enormous regional disparities and important differences by sex. This paper addresses these issues, focusing initially on the 1887 census returns and also making use of local empirical data and of in-depth interviews of elderly informants. The goal is to propose an interpretation of historical patterns of literacy based, to a large extent, on the existence of important differences in the perceived value of literacy and education, very high in some regions and very low in others. The author argues that these cleavages go beyond the importance of economic structures, have deep historical roots and continue to be present in contemporary Spain despite the substantial growth in educational attainment taking place during this past century.

AbstractDisparities in reproductive behavior visible in the developed world are a long‐term implication of the demographic transition. While present at the very outset of the transition, their effects are most visible once childhood mortality loses its relevance as a key constraint on reproduction. These disparities are rooted in the type of society that emerged as the result of the way the historical role of the family and individual in society interacted with social and economic modernization processes characterizing the entire century, but especially visible during the rapid acceleration of social and cultural changes after mid‐century. The way these new societies function provides a necessary backdrop for understanding fertility in a world of individual reproductive choice and competing goals. The result is that traditionally individualistic societies tend to fare better than societies where family loyalties are and have always been a cornerstone of society. Disparities in fertility are rooted in the incentives and disincentives for reproduction present in society, are unlikely to disappear anytime soon and are leading to very different rates of aging in the developed world.

RESUMENEste trabajo aborda la integración de los distintos mercados regionales de grano en España durante el Antiguo Régimen. Haciendo uso de series de precios y de producción de diversa procedencia, el autor emplea técnicas de estimación relativamente sencillas, desde correlaciones y desviaciones típicas de series sin tendencia hasta modelos de retardos distribuidos. Estas técnicas revelan la existencia de una covariación entre los precios de granos en distintos mercados regionales, así como la existencia de efectos simultáneos y retardados de la producción de granos sobre el precio de los mismos en mercados locales y bastante más lejanos. El autor concluye que existía una integración modesta pero en aumento de los distintos mercados en la Península, sobre todo durante el siglo XVIII, y que las instituciones eran capaces de amortiguar en parte los efectos de una cosecha fallida. El trabajo concluye apuntando el calendario posible de la progresiva integración de los mercados de grano ocurrida a lo largo de buena parte del siglo XIX en España.

AbstractMost people coreside with other kin in private households while others live alone. The incidence of coresidence with kin and solo living varies noticeably across societies. Scholars have long theorized about the role of modernization and cultural change for living arrangements, suggesting a trend toward the nuclearization of households (coresidence only with primary kin) or solo living as societies attain higher levels of development. There is little empirical evidence about global variations in living arrangements and about how such variations unfold at different levels of development. Here we address these fundamental questions. Using IPUMS census microdata for 279 samples and 90 countries, we develop a new metric for assessing the part of the lifetime a person can expect to reside with primary kin, nonprimary kin, or alone assuming exposure rates, from birth to death, to the living arrangements observed in a given year. Results show that coresidence patterns differ substantially across societies, with exposure to primary kin alone and to solo living substantially higher at higher levels of development (as measured with Human Development Index [HDI]). They also reveal a sustained decline in coresidence with nonprimary kin and/or with others nearly everywhere, supporting the idea of an increasing importance of nuclear living arrangements. This trend is most pronounced at medium levels of HDI. At very high levels of development, nuclear family coresidence tends to be stalling or is in decline in favor of more time spent living alone and, rather unexpectedly, to a modest increase in exposure to nonprimary kin within the household. We suggest different interpretations for these results.

AbstractUsing census and survey microdata from 69 countries worldwide, in this paper we document levels of intergenerational coresidence over the life course and examine changes in recent decades. We present evidence of a generalized pattern of increase in intergenerational coresidence during the initial decade of this century. This is most evident among people aged 20–30 and, at least in regions such as Europe and North America and in Latin America and the Caribbean, affects women as much or more than it does men. Rates of increase are fastest in Asia (especially among men), robust in Europe and Latin America, and relatively slow in Africa. This shift is occurring in a variety of demographic, economic, and cultural contexts and appears to run counter to expectations that intergenerational coresidence would gradually decline with modernization and cultural change. We discuss the extent to which these results challenge existing interpretations of the role of the family in contemporary society.

This paper extends the literature on the internal migration patterns of the foreign-born by analyzing the situation in Spain, a country affected by recent but very significant migratory flows. We utilize a standard theoretical framework in order to assess the relative importance of human capital, economic, and social capital indicators. To this end, we take advantage of a new micro database, the National Immigrant Survey (Encuesta National de Inmigrantes – ENI-2007). Our findings suggest that the main theories explaining internal migration patterns of the foreign-born are at least partly true. Evidence is presented in support of the importance of education and knowledge of the native language, income, and networks based on the sharing of social capital among family members, though less so for those based on friends and acquaintances. Spanish citizenship and employment status seem to be less important in explaining the propensity to move within the country. We argue that the lack of significance of some indicators is due mainly to the fact that Spain has become a major destination only very recently as well as to the way different immigrant groups tend to implement strategies for promotion and integration.

El presente artículo pretende arrojar un poco de luz acerca de algunos de los aspectos más importantes de las economías familiares dentro de un contexto histórico. Se ha propuesto una perspectiva analítica que enfatiza los aspectos dinámicos y flexibles de las economías, tanto en el mundo industrial y urbano, como en el rural. Al igual que para Chayanov, la relación de productores y consumidores dentro del núcleo familiar ha sido un factor clave para el bienestar de la familia. No obstante, la economía doméstica se ha mostrado flexible, adaptándose a las nuevas situaciones surgidas como consecuencia de sus realidades demográficas y económicas. La utilización de los recursos humanos disponibles dentro de la familia, así como la variación de los tipos de actividad económica forman parte esencial de estas estrategias adaptativas.

This study analyzes the timing, magnitude, and volume of the mid‐twentieth century baby boom in European and non‐European Western countries. The baby boom is found to have been especially strong in the non‐European countries, fairly strong in some European countries, and quite weak in others. While the boom has often been linked with postwar economic growth and the recuperation of births postponed during the Depression era, we argue that this is only a limited part of the story. In most cases the recovery of the birth rate started well before the end of World War II, a fact not accounted for by existing theories. We investigate the roles played by the recovery of period as well as cohort fertility, the underlying marriage boom, and the recovery of marital fertility. We identify major puzzles for future research, including the reasons for strongly declining ages at marriage and the role played by contraceptive failure in the rise of high‐parity births.