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Life Under Pressure: France and England, 1670–1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

David R. Weir
David R. Weir
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.
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Abstract

Comparative methods are used to examine two hypotheses derived from Wrigley and Schofield's Population History of England. Contrary to their expectations, economic shocks produced greater marriage responses in France than in England, and the early onset of family limitation in France did not increase the responsiveness of marital fertility to living standards in the aggregate. Mortality was strongly dependent on economic shocks only in France prior to 1740. The results question the usefulness of Maithusian models for early modern European economic history.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 27 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1984

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References

1 Wrigley, E. A. and Schofield, Roger, The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

2 For a different approach that assumes no structural change in the period 1740–1909 see Richards, Toni, “Weather, Nutrition, and the Economy: Short-Run Fluctuations in Births, Deaths, and Marriages, France 1740–1909,” Demography, 20 (1983), 197–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 Wrigley and Schofield, Population History, p. 451.Google Scholar

4 A similar diagrammatic representation is offered by Wrigley and Schofield, ibid., p. 460.

5 There is a parallel here with the logical difficulties associated with Macfarlane's claims for English uniqueness based on contradictions of a stylized model of a peasant economy and not on comparative history. See Macfarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism (London, 1978).Google Scholar

6 Goubert, Pierre, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de 1600 à 1730 (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar is the preeminent source and is used repeatedly by Wrigley, and Schofield, , Population History, pp. 325, 328, 450–52, 479.Google Scholar

7 Sauvy, Alfred, Théorie Générale de la Population, 2 vols. (Paris, 1956–1959)Google Scholar, cited by Wrigley and Schofield, Population History, p. 452. Arthur Young offered the same interpretation of the state of the French rural economy some years earlier (Travels in France [London, 1796]).Google Scholar On changes in the French positive check see Meuvret, Jean, “Demographic Crisis in France from the 16th to the 18th Centuries,” in Population in History, ed. Glass, David and Eversley, D. E. C. (London, 1965). The same point is also made by Goubert.Google Scholar

8 Fertility transition refers here to the declines in fertility associated with the widespread adoption of marital fertility control. The timing and historical significance of the transition are examined more fully in Weir, David R., “Fertility Transition in Rural France, 1740–1829” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1983).Google Scholar

9 Expressons of a neo-Malthusian interpretation can be found in Wrigley, E. A., “Fertillty Strategy for the Individual and the Group,” in Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, ed. Tilly, Charles (Princeton, 1978);Google Scholar or van de Walle, Etienne, “Marriage and Marital Fertility,” Daedalus, 97 (06 1968), 486–501Google ScholarPubMed, and “Motivations and Technology in the Decline of French Fertility,” in Family and Sexuality in French History, ed. Wheaton, Robert and Hareven, Tamara (Philadelphia, 1980).Google Scholar

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11 Most historians agree that the contraceptive measures adopted by French households after 1790 had been available for centuries. See Bergues, Hélène, La Prévention des Naissances dans la Famille (Paris, 1960);Google Scholar or Himes, Norman, A Medical History of Contraception (Baltimore, 1936).Google Scholar Supply-siders therefore emphasize changes in acceptability brought about by, for example, secularization. On this, see Lesthaeghe, Ronald, “On the Social Control of Human Reproduction,” Population and Development Review, 6 (12 1980), 527–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Wrigley and Schofield, Population History, p. 479.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 480.

14 Lesthaeghe, R. and van de Walle, E. (“Economic Factors and Fertility Decline in France and Belgium,” in Economic Factors in Population Growth, ed. Coale, A. [London, 1976])Google Scholar discuss the alternatives. France appears to have been unique in this regard as well; most of the European fertility transitions after 1870 were accompanied by trends toward later marriage. See Watkins, Susan C., “Regional Patterns of Nuptiality in Europe, 1870–1960,” Population Studies, 35 (1981).Google Scholar

15 For England, Wrigley and Schofield (Population History, Table A3.3, pp. 531–35)Google Scholar provide annual data on crude rates back to 1541. French data from the surveys of the Institut National d'Études Démographiques begin in 1740: Blayo, Yves, “Mouvement naturel de la population française de 1740 à 1829,” Population, 30 (Special Number, 1975), 15–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For 1830–1869, French vital rates are taken from Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics (London, 1975).Google Scholar

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17 For a more comprehensive treatment of the measurement and interpretation of marital fertility change in France, see Weir, “Fertility Transition”.Google Scholar

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19 There are conditions under which such an interpretation might be misleading. Its appropriateness for France is discussed at length in Weir, “Fertility Transition,” pp. 41–70.Google Scholar

20 The beginnings of decline in the French cohorts married in 1770–1789 can be traced to the portion of their married lives that followed the Revolution. See Weir, “Fertility Transition,”.Google Scholar

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23 See Brien, Patrick O' and Keyder, Caglar, Economic Growth in France and Britain, 1780–1914 (London, 1978), for a recent optimistic assessment of French economic preformance.Google Scholar

24 Lee, Ronald D., “Short-term Variation: Vital Rates, Prices, and Weather,” in Population History, pp. 356–401.Google Scholar

25 Following Lee, detrending will be accomplished by dividing annual observatons by an 11-year moving average centered on the year. An alternative procedure–division by the value of the previous year–did not appreciably affect the results.Google Scholar

26 And in one more technical respect do they differ from Lee's. A slightly different procedure was used to adjust mortality for the structural impact of birth rate variations through the infant mortality rate. Adjusted mortality was constructed using the formula: where CDR is the annual crude death rate, CBR is the annual crude birth rate, and s is a separation factor for the proportion of all infant deaths that occur in the same calendar year as the infant's birth, taken as. 74 for this sample. IMR is the infant mortality rate for the decade. French data are from Institut National d'Études Démographiques, “Sixiéme rapport sur la situation démographique de la France,” Population, 32 (1977), 253–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar English data were inferred from life expectancy figures in Wrigley and Schofield, Population History, p. 230, using their model life tables (p. 714) and linear interpolation between levels.Google Scholar

27 French demographic data are the binding constraint here, necessitating the use of a different source for English wheat prices than that used by Lee.Google Scholar

28 Lee, “Short-term Variation,” p. 375.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 369.

30 Lee notes that the inclusion of weather variables greatly reduces this unexpected result (ibid., p. 376).

31 Rebaudo, Danièle, “Le mouvement annuel de la population française rurale de 1670 à 1739,” Population, 34 (06 1979), 589–606. The sample is representative of rural France only.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See Eckstein, Zvi, Schultz, T. Paul, and Wolpin, Kenneth I., “Short-Run Fluctuations in Fertility and Mortality in Preindustrial Sweden” (unpublished manuscript, Yale University, 10 1982).Google Scholar

33 Labrousse, C. Ernest, Esquisse du Mouvement des Prix er des Revenus en France au 18e siècle (Paris, 1932).Google Scholar

34 The localities and sources used to estimate the national series were: Pontoise: Dupaquier, J., Lachiver, M., and Meuvret, J., Mercuriales du Pays de France et du Vexin Français, 1640–1792 (Paris, 1968);Google Scholar Toulouse: Frêche, Georges and Frêche, Genevieve, Les Prix des Grains, des Vins, et des Légumes à Toulouse, 1486–1868 (Paris, 1967);Google ScholarEtienne, St.: Gras, L. J., Histoire du Commerce Locale de la Région Stephanoise (St. Etienne, 1910);Google Scholar Strasbourg: Hanauer, A., Études Économiques sur l' Alsace Ancienne et Moderne, 2 vols. (Strasbourg, 1878);Google ScholarAngers, , Grenoble, , and Paris: Hauser, Henri, L'Histoire des Prix en France de 1500 à 1800 (Paris, 1936);Google Scholar Poitiers: Raveau, Paul, “Essai sur la situation économique et l'état social en Poitou au 16e siècle,” Revue d'shistoire économique et sociale, 18 (07 1930), 315–65.Google Scholar

35 See Lee, “Short-term Variation,” pp. 374–75. I owe the point to Ronald Lee for directing my attention to the peculiarities of the period 1665–1745 as shown in his analysis of the effects of weather (p. 393).Google Scholar

36 Appleby, Andrew B. (“Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises in England and France, 1590–1740,” this JOURNAL, 34 [12 1979], 868–88)Google Scholar offers some intriguing ideas. These and others are developed more fully in Weir, David R., “Life Under Pressure: Questions for a Comparative History of Economy and Demography in France and England, 1670–1870” (Yale Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper No. 407, May 1982).Google Scholar

37 Boserup, Ester, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (Chicago, 1965) is the best-known example of a non-Malthusian alternative.Google Scholar