On the origins of the demographic transition: rethinking the European marriage pattern

Abstract

Why did France experience the demographic transition first? This question remains one of the greatest puzzles of economics, demography, and economic history. The French pattern is hard to reconcile with elucidations of the process as found in other countries. The present analysis goes back to the roots of the process and offers novel ways of explaining why people started to control their fertility in France and how they did so. In this paper, I track the evolution of marriage patterns to a point before the premises of the demographic transition. I identify two distinct phases. Next, I rely on exploratory methods to classify French counties based on their discriminatory features. Five profiles emerge. I discuss these profiles through the lens of the French Revolution, one of the greatest events that ever occurred in French history, which irretrievably altered its society. In particular, the results show that the fertility transition was not as linear, but more complex than previous research had argued. They show the importance of accounting for cultural factors and for individuals’ predispositions to adapt more or less quickly to societal changes. Yet cultural factors are not all. They can help to explain the timing of the transition and the choice of methods used to control fertility, but modernity and gender equality are also needed to describe the mechanisms in play behind the process.

Основни Показатељи Демографског Развоја Брчко Дистрикта Босне И Херцеговине

“…Bagan and Yamagata (2015) presented an interesting way of examining the urban growth and population density of Japan based on satellite images of night light. Using the example of France, the demographic transition of society was analyzed by Perrin (2021), explaining why society began to control fertility. Степић (2004) considers demographic phenomena as an important factor in the creation of a geopolitical idea.…”

The urban–rural height gap: evidence from late nineteenth-century Catalonia

“…In Catalonia, fertility and death rates began to decline simultaneously in the first half of the nineteenth century (Nadal 1959;Nadal and Sáez 1972;and above all, Ferrer Alòs 2021), mirroring the pattern of demographic transition that had previously characterised France (e.g. Perrin 2022).…”