Studies dealing with the demographic events of any given period from the early historical up to World War I.
Comprehensive surveys, notes of sources, and items on the state of research. Particularly concerned with the period before modern vital registration was introduced and censuses were taken. Historical items that primarily pertain to one specific demographic variable are classified first under the specific heading and then cross-referenced to this heading.
62:30548 Hammel, E. A.
Demographic constraints on and probable female contributions to the
emergence of homosapiens. Program in Population Research Working
Paper, No. 39, Apr 1995. 21, [5] pp. University of California,
Institute of International Studies, Program in Population Research:
Berkeley, California. In Eng.
"This paper speculates on some
demographic aspects of the population growth of early humans, perhaps
including pre-sapiens species." The author notes that "the
human population grew for most of its existence at very low average
rates. Expectation of life at birth was probably low. The fertility
necessary to achieve even infinitesimal growth under such mortality
implies birth intervals sufficiently short to conflict with the ability
to care for and carry children in a foraging economy. Techniques for
the control of mortality, especially of children before puberty and of
women in childbirth, and of child care exchange, probably developed by
females, may have been essential in permitting population
growth."
Correspondence: University of California,
Institute of International Studies, Program in Population Research,
Berkeley, CA 94720. Location: Princeton University Library
(SPR).
62:30549 Hoch, Steven L. On good
numbers and bad: Malthus, population trends and peasant standard of
living in late imperial Russia. Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 1,
Spring 1994. 41-75 pp. Stanford, California. In Eng.
This study
concerns the problems involved in measuring the standard of living in
Russia prior to 1917. "The intent of this article is to critique
much that has been written on the peasant standard of living debate and
to place population theory and demographic issues at the center of
discussion. The first part...will evaluate various surrogate measures
that have been used to assess rural living standards; it finds most of
them wanting....The focus of the second part...is to call into question
the implicit malthusian paradigm linking rapid population growth to
economic and social distress....My findings will place the secular
decline in mortality in Russia as far back as the immediate
post-emancipation period, and raise the heretical possibility that the
reforms of the 1860s might have actually bettered the peasants' lot.
The mechanism for this mortality decline has yet to be determined, but
there is strong evidence suggesting that an improved level of rural
nutrition and a resultant decrease in deaths from specific infectious
diseases were more significant factors in Russia than elsewhere in
Europe."
Location: Princeton University Library (PR).
62:30550 Hoem, Jan M.
Moving-average graduation and the timing of the historical
demographic transition in Sweden. In: Demography, economy and
welfare, edited by Christer Lundh. 1995. 466-78 pp. Lund University
Press: Lund, Sweden; Chartwell-Bratt: Bromley, England. In Eng.
"In this paper, we use optimal moving-average graduation to
determine the time of onset of the stages of the (first) demographic
transition in Sweden more accurately than before....The purpose of the
present paper is to indicate the principles of construction of
well-smoothing moving averages and to illustrate their use in a
demographic context. Our illustrations use long historical time series
of demographic rates for Sweden, and they lead to a more accurate
determination than before of the onset of the mortality and fertility
declines that demarcate the stages of (first) demographic transition in
this country."
Correspondence: J. M. Hoem, Stockholm
University, Demography Unit, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Location:
Princeton University Library (SPR).
62:30551 Robin, Jean. From
childhood to middle age: cohort analysis in Colyton, 1851-1891.
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
Working Paper Series, No. 1, ISBN 0-9527065-0-4. 1995. 64, [23] pp.
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure:
Cambridge, England. In Eng.
"The object of this study has been
to follow the life courses of the 633-strong cohort of 0-9 years-olds
listed in the 1851 census for Colyton [England] through 40 years to
1891, or until their earlier disappearance through death or migration,
and to use their experiences to explore the rural society of which they
were part....The division of the children of the cohort into five main
groups, based on the occupations of their fathers, makes it possible to
attempt an assessment of how far their lives were influenced by
socio-economic factors, whether within the family or as members of a
co-residential group in childhood, or in relation to education,
employment, migration, mortality, marriage, social mobility, poverty
and related topics, as the children became teenagers and progressed
into adulthood and finally middle age."
Correspondence:
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social
Structure, 27 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA, England.
Location: Princeton University Library (SPR).
62:30552 Schellekens, Jona. Irish
famines and English mortality in the eighteenth century. Journal
of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 27, No. 1, Summer 1996. 29-42 pp.
Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Eng.
The relationship between famines
in Ireland and mortality in England in the eighteenth century is
explored. Specifically, the author attempts to confirm Charles
Creighton's hypothesis that typhus (or typhoid) epidemics in England
were directly related to periods of famine in Ireland. The author uses
data from Wrigley and Schofield's calculation of English death rates.
The results suggest that nearly 50% of England's mortality decline was
crisis-related, and that "English health was constantly under
threat from Irish famines, which caused the stream of vagrants to the
much wealthier England to swell."
Correspondence: J.
Schellekens, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Demography,
Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel. Location: Princeton
University Library (SH).
62:30553 Schlumbohm, Jürgen.
Micro-history and the macro-models of the European demographic
system in pre-industrial times: life course patterns in the parish of
Belm (Northwest Germany), seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
History of the Family, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1996. 81-95 pp. Greenwich,
Connecticut/London, England. In Eng.
"Current models of the
European demo-economic system in pre-industrial times are based on
strong assumptions about the predominant patterns of individual life
courses. Now recent micro-studies of individual communities make it
possible to check whether the actual patterns of life fit these
assumptions. The findings for Belm present an amazing blend of
confirmations and contradictions. In particular, the connection between
marriage and the formation of a new self-supporting household is
subject to doubt. Together with the findings of other micro-studies,
the evidence for Belm suggests that the assumptions about mechanisms
linking marriage to economic resources should be reconsidered, and that
there is need for a dialogue between macro-theories and
micro-history."
Correspondence: J. Schlumbohm,
Max-Planck Institute for History, Hermann-Föge-Weg 11, 37073
Göttingen, Germany. Location: Princeton University
Library (PR).
62:30554 Vasey, Daniel E.
Population regulation, ecology, and political economy in
preindustrial Iceland. American Ethnologist, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1996.
366-92 pp. Arlington, Virginia. In Eng.
"Social controls on
sex and marriage, rooted in the political economy, regulated population
in preindustrial Iceland. Married women had high fertility, offset by
low illegitimacy and a means prerequisite for marriage. The number of
married householders in their childbearing years responded to changes
in population pressure, adjusting fertility and moving the population
toward about 50,000, a level determined by both the sub-Arctic
environment and the political economy, which discouraged full use of
available technology."
Location: Princeton University
Library (SPR).
Applications of demographic methodology to the records of the past. Relevant items are coded here and, if of more general interest than to historical demography alone, are cross-referenced to N. Methods of Research and Analysis Including Models .
62:30555 Cazes, Marie-Hélène;
Cazes, Pierre. How to measure the genealogical depth of an
ancestry? [Comment mesurer la profondeur
généalogique d'une ascendance?] Population, Vol. 51, No.
1, Jan-Feb 1996. 117-40 pp. Paris, France. In Fre. with sum. in Eng;
Spa.
"Many studies in genetics and historical demography rely
on family reconstitution, beginning with one individual and his or her
ancestry. Information from such genealogies varies depending on the
number of the individual's ancestors who can be identified. Traditional
assessments of kinship or consanguinity ratios are often based on such
reconstitution. This reinforces the need for information from these
genealogies to be quantified in order that individual situations may be
compared. In this paper it is shown that an index which is supposed to
provide information about the average length of an ancestry may lead to
inconsistent results in some cases, and two new indices and their
associated variances are introduced which eliminate inconsistencies and
can be used to measure average genealogical
lengths."
Correspondence: M.-H. Cazes, Institut
National d'Etudes Démographiques, 27 rue du Commandeur, 75675
Paris Cedex 14, France. Location: Princeton University Library
(SPR).
62:30556 Hagnell, Mats.
Economic-historical applications of latent variable models for time
series data. In: Demography, economy and welfare, edited by
Christer Lundh. 1995. 479-93 pp. Lund University Press: Lund, Sweden;
Chartwell-Bratt: Bromley, England. In Eng.
"Here we will
consider two economic-historical applications of latent variable models
for time series data. In the first application we treat the regression
of an observed variable on a latent variable....In the other
application we consider the regression of a latent variable on another
latent variable....The two applications use nearly the same data so
they mainly differ with regard to the complexity of the models used. In
the first application we are interested in the dependence of the
observed variable adult mortality on the latent variable real income in
Sweden during the years 1751-1850....In the second application we
consider the same economic-historical problem as above but generalize
our approach...."
Correspondence: M. Hagnell,
University of Lund, Department of Statistics, Box 7008, 220 07 Lund,
Sweden. Location: Princeton University Library (SPR).
