Suchergebnisse

Summary
One of the largest groups of workers in hospitals historically has been external wet nurses. They are responsible for raising abandoned children during their early years of life. However, we know little about them, only what the records of foundling homes tell us. In this article, we have combined information from the foundling hospital in the city of Zaragoza, Spain, with parish records of all wet nurses from 16 rural municipalities in the province throughout the nineteenth century (170 women who took care of 215 foundlings). From the data, we have studied their family profile, reproductive success, and motivations for volunteering as wet nurses. Did they only do it for the necessary extra income? Our results indicate that wet nurses had greater reproductive success than their contemporaries, using the care of foundlings as a means to space out their own marital fertility.

Abstract
This study examines the changes over time of the twinning rate and infant and child mortality across 17 rural villages in the province of Zaragoza (Spain) over a span of 200 years. The aim is to understand how the twinning rate evolved in conjunction with the processes of economic and social modernization, as well as the demographic transition. During the period analyzed, the twinning rate increased by 10%, rising from 1.26 per 1000 births in the second half of the 18th century to 1.38 per 1000 births in the first half of the 20th century. This rate varied due to hereditary issues, biological factors such as the mother's age and parity, and socioeconomic features like family occupation and the mother's education level. In terms of child mortality, twins historically faced a significantly higher mortality rate. However, they benefited greatly from the mortality transition, at least in absolute numbers. While nearly 60% of twins did not survive beyond 5 years of age in earlier periods, the mortality rate for twins decreased to 40% by the first half of the 20th century. The excess mortality was particularly severe for girls, driven by a widespread preference for sons, which led to higher mortality rates for girls in the first 5 years of life, especially in the earliest months. These findings help us understand the improvements in uterine and childhood survival rates for contemporary twins, which can be attributed to the socioeconomic and medical advancements of the 20th century.

AbstractWe analyse the evolution of birth-baptism intervals between 1830 and 1949 among children born into 815 Spanish families and relate the changes observed to developments in childhood mortality. Our results show that birth-baptism intervals in our study area increased rapidly after 1890, three decades after childhood mortality began to decline and a decade before fertility began to fall. We confirm that the families increasing the intervals between their children's births and baptisms after 1890 were those whose previous children had high rates of survival. We conclude that, in the last years of the nineteenth century, families were aware of the decline in child mortality and adjusted their behaviour in response.

AbstractThis article examines the relationship between the height of adult males and marital outcomes, including likelihood of marrying, age at marriage, and marital fertility, in rural Spain. For this analysis, a sample of 4,501 men born between 1835 and 1975 living in 14 villages in northeastern Spain was taken. Previous research has shown that shorter individuals are less likely to marry. However, it is still disputed whether differences exist in the timing of marrying based on height, and little attention has been paid to the effect(s) of height on offspring. Family data were obtained from parish records and interviews with individuals and their families, while height data were obtained from military records, with individuals in Spain being conscripted at the age of 21 years. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results confirm that shorter individuals were less likely to marry. Individuals of medium and medium-high height were the first to marry, with a small gap between them and shorter individuals. With regard to marital fertility, no difference in terms of average fertility by height were found, but there were small differences in timing of childbirth, possibly as a result of delayed marriage.

This article examines the relationship between the height of adult males and marital outcomes, including likelihood of marrying, age at marriage, and marital fertility, in rural Spain. For this analysis, a sample of 4, 501 men born between 1835 and 1975 living in 14 villages in northeastern Spain was taken. Previous research has shown that shorter individuals are less likely to marry. However, it is still disputed whether differences exist in the timing of marrying based on height, and little attention has been paid to the effect(s) of height on offspring. Family data were obtained from parish records and interviews with individuals and their families, while height data were obtained from military records, with individuals in Spain being conscripted at the age of 21 years. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results confirm that shorter individuals were less likely to marry. Individuals of medium and medium-high height were the first to marry, with a small gap between them and shorter individuals. With regard to marital fertility, no difference in terms of average fertility by height were found, but there were small differences in timing of childbirth, possibly as a result of delayed marriage.

This paper uses the links between children born between 1800 and 1919 and their parents in 12 rural Aragonese villages to analyze the role of fathers in the survival, health, and lifespan of children. The researchers compared the effect of being fatherless (or being motherless) to having both parents alive. The results show that being fatherless increased the probability of death during childhood. Moreover, fatherlessness reduced the average age of death as an adult, a child's average height, the probability that a child is literate, the child's socioeconomic status, and the individual's age at marriage.

ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the permanent existence of deliberate fertility control arising from short-term economic stress among rural farm workers. The micro-level analysis uses the family reconstitution method for ten rural Spanish localities. The husband's socio-economic level is regarded as an indicator of the family's socio-economic status. According to the available data, human agency between 1801 and 1909 resulted in a negative fertility response among all farm groups, with this negative response being especially strong among the landless and semi-landless. The existence of a rapid fertility control response suggests that such control was a voluntary decision. Since the end of the 19thcentury, the number of economic shocks due to high prices has reduced.

Trabajo presentado a Iberometrics VIII: Eight Iberian Cliometrics Workshop. Organizado por el Institute of Advanced Research in Business and Economics (INARBE) de la Universidad Pública de Navarra, en colaboración con Glocred y expertos de instituciones de España y Portugal. Celebrado en la Upna el 20-21 de abril de 2017. ; This paper analyzing the way some group values and individual values affected age at first marriage (both of men and women) and marital fertility during the First and Second Demographic Transition. For that purpose, three statistical regressions from microdata of individuals have been realized in nine rural localities of Aragon. Analyzed values are political environment at local level (in terms of electoral results of the polarized 1936 and 1982 elections), political tendency of individuals (political participation), religious values (church assistance) and family values (demographic transmission of behavior). Results show a change of tendency, from the predominance of group values to individual's, and prove that conservative environments fostered an older age at first marriage and a higher fertility.

L'expulsion des Morisques du Royaume d'Aragon en 1610 a vidé de nombreux villages de leurs habitants, que les autorités se sont rapidement efforcées de repeupler en proposant des parcelles « bon marché ». Néanmoins, les nouveaux habitants étant bien moins nombreux que les Morisques expulsés, l'offre de logements et de terres a excédé la demande. Cet article examine le rôle des freins préventifs malthusiens dans ce contexte de faible pression démographique. À l'aide de la méthode de reconstitution des familles qui permet de relier entre elles les micro-données issues des registres paroissiaux, on compare cinq villages repeuplés et trois villages chrétiens voisins n'ayant pas eu de Morisques expulsés. Comme les villages repeuplés affichent un taux d'accroissement de la population plus rapide que les autres villages, on tente de déterminer l'origine de cette différence. Les résultats confirment qu'un assouplissement des freins préventifs malthusiens s'est produit avec l'abaissement de l'âge au mariage et du taux de célibat, conduisant à une augmentation de la fécondité légitime. Cependant, le pourcentage d'émigrants plus important dans les villages repeuplés que dans les autres a freiné la croissance de la population. La situation économique moins favorable dans les villages repeuplés, vérifiée par les testaments, explique sans doute cette tendance.

This article analyses the relationship between male height and age at death among adults born between 1835 and 1939 in fourteen villages in north-east Spain. A total of 1,488 conscripts who died between 1868 and 2019 have been included in the analysis. The height data have been obtained from conscriptions for military service; demographic and socioeconomic data of the deceased were obtained from parish archives and censuses. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results suggest that there has been a positive relationship between height and life span in the long-term. For the birth cohorts of 1835-1869, conscripts with a height of 170 cm or more lived on average 7.6 years longer than individuals measuring less than 160 cm. This biological difference disappeared for the birth cohort of 1900-1939 due to a progressive improvement in health and nutrition conditions, benefiting especially the short conscripts.

AbstractThis paper analyses social inequality in adult mortality in rural Aragon (Spain) between the mid-sixteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It draws on individual-level microdata for more than 19,000 individuals, whose socioeconomic status, age at death, and other family, cultural, and environmental characteristics are documented. Using funeral wills as an indicator of social status up to the late eighteenth century, and occupational records from that point onward, and employing event history analysis, it tracks all individuals from 17 villages who died after reaching the age of seven, encompassing their complete life histories. This study allows for the verification of persistent social inequalities in mortality in rural Spain from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century, contrasting with findings from northern European countries, where such differences only emerged from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century onward. Our results indicate that these disparities in adult mortality by socioeconomic status were especially pronounced during periods of poor harvests, affecting both men and women.

Several studies have shown the importance of the mother in the survival and wellbeing of her children. However, none of them have analyzed the rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula. In this article we use the life courses of more than 10 thousand children born between 1750 and 1959 to understand the effects of being motherless on the survival, educative outputs, and wellbeing. To achieve this, we use descriptive statistics as well as Cox and OLS regression models. Our results confirm that the mother is one of the most important relative for the survival and wellbeing of her young children.

Abstract
Fertility control strategies became widespread in rural Spain through the twentieth century: a significant number of parents decided to reduce their marital fertility once the advantages of control strategies became widely known. This paper explores the impact of those practices on children through a comparative study of the heights and occupations of grandparents, parents, and children. We analyze more than 1,200 individuals from three different generations born between 1835 and 1959 in 14 rural Spanish villages, studying whether the advantages associated with fertility control were maintained over time favoring a better family status or whether they were diluted in the next generation. The largest increases in height were among children whose parents controlled their fertility by stopping having children before the mother's 36th birthday. However, it does not seem that this increase in biological well-being was accompanied by major episodes of upward social mobility.