Demographic Behavior in the Past
A Study of Fourteen German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

This book examines the demographic behaviour of families in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany.

John E. Knodel (Author)

9780521892810, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 April 2002

616 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 3.7 cm, 0.973 kg

This book provides a detailed examination of the demographic behavior of families during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a sample of fourteen villages in five different regions of Germany. It is based on the reconstituted family histories of vital events (births, deaths and marriages) compiled by genealogies for the entire populations of these villages. The book applies the type of micro-level analysis possible with family reconstitution data for the crucial period leading to and encompassing the early stages of the demographic transition, including the initial onset of the decline of fertility to low modern levels. The analysis explores many aspects of demographic behavior which have been largely ignored by previous macro-level investigations of the demographic transition. These include infant and child mortality, maternal mortality, marriage, marital dissolution, bridal pregnancy and illegitimacy. The core of the study, however, deals with marital reproduction, examining the modernization of reproductive behavior in terms of the transition from a situation of natural fertility to one characterized by pervasive family limitation.

List of tables
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Part I. Introduction: 1. Family reconstitution and the historical study of demographic behaviour
2. The source and the sample
Part II. Mortality: 3. Infant and child mortality: levels, trends and seasonality
4. Infant and mortality: socio-economic and demographic differentials
5. Maternal mortality
Part III. Family Formation: 6. Marriage
7. Marital dissolution and remarriage
8. Illegitimacy
9. Bridal pregnancy and prenuptial births
Part IV. Marital Reproduction: 10. Trends in marital fertility and underlying natural fertility components
11. From natural fertility to family limitation
12. Starting, stopping, spacing and the fertility transition
Part V. Interrelationships in Demographic Behaviour: 13. Family size, fertility and nuptiality interrelationships
14. Child mortality and reproductive behaviour
Part VI. Conclusion: 15. Population dynamics of the past: summing up
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Medical anthropology [PSXM], Sociology: family & relationships [JHBK], Population & demography [JHBD], European history [HBJD]