Suchergebnisse

Spain displays the greatest diversity of marriage patterns of any European country. This analysis of provincial data considers both the timing of marriage and celibacy from 1887 to 1930. As expected, demographic and economic factors, such as the marriage market and population density, exerted a substantial influence on nuptiality. Cultural patterns, represented here by inheritance practices, also played a pivotal role. Intense nuptiality can be found in areas of high mortality, partible inheritance, balanced marriage markets, moderate out-migration by both sexes, low population density, and professions which facilitated marriage.

The present article presents some of the more salient results of a research project on family and society in the province of Cuenca in Spain between the eighteenth century and 1970. Based fundamentally, though not exclusively, on the Laslett-Hammel classification system, the data gathered reveal the overwhelming predominance of simple family forms throughout the province and in different social groups, as well as the lack of any fundamental evolution during the more than 200 years studied. The determinants of the system, its implications, as well as the reasons for its long-term stability, are all examined in the light of demographic, economic, geographical and cultural factors.

Les formes traditionnelles de l'analyse historique du ménage, malgré les aperçus considérables qu'elle nous a offerts quant à la nature des systèmes familiaux pré-industriels, ont souvent dépeint d'une façon linéaire ce que I'on pourrait croire être une réalité complexe et souple. Dans une tentative d'étendre notre compréhension de cette réalité, un déplacement des méthodes du champ d'analyse synchronique è l'analyse diachronique est effectué, basé sur des archives provenant d'une petite cité provinciale espagnole. Les résultats montrent que sous une façade stable, le ménage de Cuenca est dans un état de changement perpétuel, caractérisé par des changements de structure et de composition. De plus, les résultats suggèrent que les parentés, dans un sens économique et social, non seulement transcendent les limites du ménage, mais ont également tendance à couvrir l'univers rural et urbain.

Le projet a été réalisé à partir du dépouillement de 37 000 actes relevés dans les registres paroissiaux de la ville de Cuenca (Espagne) entre le milieu du XVIe et le milieu du XIXe siècle. Le but était de reconstruire par ordinateur des familles entières, les registres choisis ayant la grande qualité de fournir 99 % d'informations nominatives. Les méthodes adoptées et les problèmes rencontrés sont sommairement décrits. Est plus particulièrement étudiée la difficulté posée par la variabilité des noms.

A set of linked reproductive histories taken from the Spanish town of Aranjuez between 1871 and 1950 is used to address key issues regarding reproductive change during the demographic transition. These include the role of child survival as a stimulus for reproductive change, the use of stopping and/or spacing strategies to achieve reproductive goals, and the timing of change. Straightforward demographic measures are used and robust results are achieved. Initial strategies of fertility limitation are shown to exist but are inefficient, are mostly visible during the latter part of the reproductive period, are designed mostly to protect families from the effects of increases in child survival, and are based almost entirely on stopping behavior. As mortality decline accelerates, strategies become much more efficient, are visible at the outset of married life, include spacing behavior, and eventually lead to important declines in completed family size. The results of this study have implications for our understanding of the demographic transition both in historical Europe and in other regions of the world.

In this article implications of season of birth for child health in Spain during the demographic transition are explored. Making use of the Aranjuez data base, the authors look at the seasonality of births and its heterogeneities, finding a nearly universal prevalence of late spring and early summer conceptions that is most evident with last-born children. Levels and causes of childhood mortality are strongly related to the season of birth, with those born between April and October showing lower likelihood of survival. These findings can be explained by the way infant feeding, age and season intersect. These results have implications for the relative efficiency of different demographic regimes.

Este libro no es sólo un detenido análisis de la mortalidad española por edades, sexos y causas de defunción a lo largo del período central de su declive los dos primeros tercios del siglo XX, sino que incorpora y discute las aportaciones que en los últimos tiempos se vienen haciendo, desde la demografía histórica, la historia económica y social, la antropometría o la historia de la medicina, al estudio de la conquista de la salud de los españoles en el último siglo de su historia. [Texto de la editorial]