Available data strongly suggest that the household formation systems of all populations in preindustrial northwest Europe shared common features that distinguished these populations from those of India China and many other preindustrial societies. Using censuses and similar data sources this essay describes and contrasts household formation rules common to northwest Europe simple household systems of the 17th and 18th centuries with those common to joint household systems. In northwest Europe late marriage was common for both sexes and married people were almost always in charge of their own household (with the husband as head). Before marriage young people often circulated between households as servants. In joint household systems both sexes married early and the young couple usually joined the household of which the husband was a member. Joint households (those comprising more than 1 married couple) had a tendency to split. The paper devotes special attention to the way in which the splitting of joint households operated in different societies. Another section shows how a substantial proportion of young people in preindustrial northwest Europe were servants at some stage in their lives. It is suggested that the institution of service may have been an essential part of the mechanism that by varying age and extent of marriage adjusted fertility to prevailing economic conditions. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1972376.pdf

Two Kinds of Preindustrial Household Formation System

The Industrial Revolution as a historical concept has many shortcomings. A new concept—the “industrious revolution”—is proposed to place the Industrial Revolution in a broader historical setting. The industrious revolution was a process of household-based resource reallocation that increased both the supply of marketed commodities and labor and the demand for market-supplied goods. The industrious revolution was a household-level change with important demand-side features that preceded the Industrial Revolution, a supply-side phenomenon. It has implications for nineteenth- and twentieth-century economic history.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022050700014467

The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution

A critical analysis was provided of the economic independence hypothesis and Beckers theories of marriage and family behavior. Historically there have been assessments of the fit between womens labor force participation and patterns of marriage formation divorce and fertility in order to determine how much coincidence played a role. Also examined were how well the theories of womens economic independence explain delayed marriage nonmarriage or both. Empirical evidence at the micro level was used to indicate the extent of support for economic independence theories. Specific attention was directed to Gary Beckers specialization theories; it was posited that specialization might actually put families and marriage at risk. Recent trends have shown a tremendous decline in mens labor market position which theories need to begin addressing. The specialization-trading model of marriage of marital relationships inevitably leads to a prediction of a decline in marriage. Low fertility means reduced need for womens specialization in home production and a low productivity population. A more adaptive family strategy for a modern industrial society would be based on both parents working. Increased womens employment serves as a substitute for the work of their children for enhancing social mobility and as a stabilizing factor in the familys economic equilibrium over the development cycle. When mens economic position and its impact on marriage behavior is modeled by Wilson and Neckerman a threshold effect emerges where for instance the rise of black female-headed families in the US is considered reflective of the decline in the marriageable supply of men. Census data on moderately well educated and less well educated males indicated a deteriorated labor market position between 1950 and 1980. 1) Mens labor market declines accelerated after 1970. 2) 25-34 year old male non-graduates as well as very young men experienced labor market declines. 3) Male high school graduates also suffered declines in employment particularly Blacks. These three trends occurred throughout the declines in prime marrying ages. Chinhui Juhn revealed that mens unemployment declined over time and once out of work there was little reentry into the work force. Deterioration in earnings was also evident. Earnings ratio data can obscure relationships. Mens declining earnings are effecting the ratio because womens earnings have remained stable since the mid 1980s. Even the economic position of college graduates who experienced income declines in the 1970s does not explain the continued rise in delayed marriage by the 1980s.

Womens rising employment and the future of the family in industrial societies.

The Industrious Revolution by Jan de Vries

In this, the first comprehensive one-volume survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. The approach taken is both thematic, with chapters on the underlying determinants of economic performance, and chronological, with coverage of the whole of the Greek and Roman worlds extending from the Aegean Bronze Age to Late Antiquity. The contributors move beyond the substantivist-formalist debates that dominated twentieth-century scholarship and display a new interest in economic growth in antiquity. New methods for measuring economic development are explored, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately. Fully accessible to non-specialist, the volume represents a major advance in our understanding of the economic expansion that made the civilisation of the classical Mediterranean world possible.

/pdf/the-cambridge-economic-history-of-the-greco-roman-world-2dvab3lyi9.pdf

The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world

This paper using pretransitional England as a case-study assesses long term trends in family organization and associated fertility in a society in which parity-dependent fertility control was for the most part absent. It also considers the means by which institutions especially those to do with labor organizations and family welfare mediated between trends in real incomes and completed family sizes. The study concludes that the distinctiveness of the English experience stems from the culturally specific nature of the rules of household formation that gave changes in marriage age and incidence a fundamental role in determining the markedly dynamic quality of fertility before the late nineteenth century. It is found that "these household formation rules appear not to have been much altered by the growth of agrarian and industrial capitalism although they did undermine the capacity of the demographic system to act homeostatically." (summary in FRE SPA)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1972800.pdf

Fertility economy and household formation in England over three centuries

Bastardy and its Comparative History.

Preface 1. Some issues concerning families and their property in rural England 1250-1800 Richard M. Smith 2. Population pressure, inheritance and the land market in a fourteenth-century peasant community Bruce M. S. Campbell 3. Families and their land in an area of partible inheritance: Redgrave, Suffolk 1260-1320 Richard M. Smith 4. Population changes and the transfer of customary land on a Cambridgeshire manor in the fourteenth century Jack Ravensdale 5. Industrial employment and the rural land market 1380-1520 Ian Blanchard 6. Changes in the size of peasant holdings in some west midland villages 1400-1540 Christopher Dyer 7. The erosion of the family-land bond in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: a methodological note Zvi Razi 8. Changes in the link between families and land in the west midlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Christopher Dyer 9. Kinship in an English village: Terling, Essex 1550-1700 Keith Wrightson 10. The myth of the peasantry: family and economy in a northern parish Alan MacFarlane 11. Poverty, poor relief and the life-cycle: some evidence from seventeenth-century Norfolk Tim Wales 12. The receipt of poor relief and family situation: Aldenham, Hertfordshire 1630-90 W. Newman Brown 13. Widows in pre-industrial society: an essay upon their economic functions B. A. Holderness 14. Real property, marriage and children: the evidence from four pre-industrial communities Richard Wall 15. The nineteenth-century peasantry of Melbourn, Cambridgeshire Dennis R. Mills Consolidated bibliography Index.

Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle

The World we have gained : histories of population and social structure

This collection of 15 studies by various authors concerns aspects of historical demography associated with the work of Peter Laslett. The essays range back in time as far as the fourteenth century and span topics as diverse but demonstrably interconnected as internal migration family structure and employment marriage and widowhood inheritance and remarriage the determinants of marital fertility maternal mortality and illegitimacy. Data sources include wills tithing lists manorial court rolls parish registers of various types and family reconstitutions as well as contemporary works and documents. The geographical focus is primarily on England but individual studies are concerned with Sweden and Italy.

Richard M. Smith

Papers

Fertility economy and household formation in England over three centuries

Bastardy and its Comparative History.

Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle

The World we have gained : histories of population and social structure

The world we have gained: histories of population and social structure. Essays presented to Peter Laslett on his seventieth birthday.