Discussion paper

DP9116 Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England

We question the received wisdom that birth limitation was absent among historical populations before the fertility transition of the late nineteenth-century. Using duration and panel models on individual data, we find a causal negative effect of living standards on birth spacing in the three centuries preceding England's fertility transition. While the effect could be driven by biology in the case of the poor, a significant effect among the rich suggests that spacing worked as a control mechanism in pre-modern England. Our findings support the Malthusian preventive check hypothesis and rationalize England's historical leadership as a low population-pressure, high-wage economy.

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Citation

Weisdorf, J, F Cinnirella and M Klemp (2012), ‘DP9116 Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 9116. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp9116