249 research outputs found
Son Preference in a Sharecropping Society: Gender Composition of Children and Reproduction in a Pre-Transitional Italian Community
No full textBefore the demographic transition, were couples able to control their fertility? Can we find evidence for this by comparing households with different occupations, in which the sex composition of the offspring may reveal a preference for children of a given sex and reproductive behaviours that differ in response to economic factors? To address this question, Matteo Manfredini, Marco BresCHi and Alessio fornasin make use of an original database on the fertility of nineteenth-century Tuscan families that combines information from parish registers and from a local census of inhabitants. They compare the probability of further births according to the sex composition of surviving children, focusing on four social groups: day labourers, sharecroppers, smallholders and non-agricultural occupations. The authors find evidence that sharecroppers tended to favour large families in order to secure a male heir
Patterns of reproductive behavior in transitional Italy: The rediscovery of the Italian fertility survey of 1961
No full textBackground: Few studies have investigated the role of the intermediate variables of fertility at the micro-level in Italy, and, in particular, little is known about the influence of socioeconomic factors. This is the reason that the mechanisms through which women arrived at the control of their own fertility are still largely unexplored. Objective: We wish to analyze the role of education and socioeconomic determinants on the process of fertility transition in four Italian populations, by focusing on the birth cohorts born between the end of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. Methods: Data comes from the census returns of 1961, which include a Fertility Survey aimed at gathering information on the reproductive history of ever-married women. A negative binomial regression was then carried out to check the influence of some socioeconomic determinants on the completed family size of such women. Results: Among socioeconomic factors, women's education proves to be more important than family economic status in shaping fertility levels, with highly educated women showing a smaller completed family size than illiterate ones. In particular, fertility differentials by educational attainment appear to be wider at the beginning of the transition. Conclusions: The use of micro-level data has allowed us to shed some light on the importance of women's education, especially in the first stages of fertility transition, resulting in one of the possible explanations for ist different onsets in the various regions of Italy
Demographic responses to short-term stress in a 19th century Tuscan population: The case of household out-migration
No full textThis paper deals with the relationship between household emigration and short-term crisis in a rural community of mid-19th century Tuscany. Based on a detailed reconstruction of individual and household life-histories, the paper shows the close relationship between household emigration and different kinds of short-term stresses, either economic, epidemiologic or within the household. Despite the different response by SES - with the poorest strata of the population much exposed to price changes and mortality crisis - the death of the household head appears as one of the most powerful factor of household emigration.emigration, household, Italy, sharecropping, short-term stress
Le mappe di salute di una popolazione storica prime indagini sul Friuli (XIX secolo)
No full textThis paper aims at presenting some health maps of a historical population. The studies on the health status of past populations are usually focused on the causes of death. Our purpose is to present some descriptive analyses on non-deadly diseases. The present work focuses on the province of Friuli (north-eastern Italy) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The used sources are military call-up records. We collected about 300,000 records relative to military recruitment that took place between 1866 and 1909 (birth cohorts 1846-1890). Our main concern was the health status of the 20-year male population, and its association with environmental, socio economic and genetic factors. Generally speaking, we observe that the northern mountain area was the most advantaged, while young adults from the eastern and western parts of the province were the most disadvantaged. A lot of factors and causes contributed to determine the spatial distribution of specific diseases in Friuli, whilst others remain unknown because
simple descriptive analyses are not sufficient to highlight them all. In particular, the distribution of the thyroidal hypertrophy was almost certainly due to the water quality, while the distribution of dental caries was probably related to genetic and dietary factors.Il presente studio si propone di presentare alcune mappe di salute relative ad una popolazione storica. Gli studi sullo stato di salute delle popolazioni del passato è incentrato solitamente sulle cause di morte. Il nostro obiettivo è di presentare alcune analisi descrittive sulla distribuzione di alcune patologie che non avevano effetto letale. Il lavoro è incentrato sul Friuli (Italia nord-orientale) nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento. La fonte utilizzata è costituita dalle liste di estrazione militare e consiste in circa 300.000 visite di leva svoltesi tra il 1866 e il 1909 (generazioni 1846-1890). Il nostro principale obiettivo è quello di valutare lo stato di salute della popolazione maschile di 20 anni e la sua associazione con fattori ambientali, socio-economici e genetici. In generale l’area montuosa settentrionale risultava essere la più avvantaggiata, mentre le aree più svantaggiate erano quelle della parte orientale e occidentale della provincia. Molti fattori hanno contribuito a determinare la distribuzione spaziale di alcune malattie specifiche del Friuli, mentre altre restano sconosciute perché le semplici analisi descrittive non sono sufficienti per evidenziarle tutte. In particolare la distribuzione dell’ipertrofismo tiroideo era dovuta quasi sicuramente alla qualità dell’acqua, mentre la distribuzione della carie dentaria era probabilmente legata a fattori di tipo genetico e alimentare
Mortality differentials by gender in the first years of life. The effect of household structure in Casalguidi, 1819-59
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Gender differences in mortality in the first years of life. The effect of household structure in Casalguidi, 1819-59
No full textLand Inequality and Demographic Outcomes: The Relationship between Access to Land and the Demographic System in 19th-century Rural Tuscany
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