Fertility Response to Economic Stress
The existence of a fertility response to economic stress can also be seen as an indicator of standard of living, although the mechanisms are not as straightforward as they are with mortality.
In times of economic stress, fertility may be affected both intentionally through deliberate fertility control (i.e. postponement of births or abortions), and unintentionally, through effects of short-term economic stress: lower fecundity, foetal loss, or separation between spouses. The problem is how to separate these different effects, or in other words, how to decide whether an observed response results from intentional acts or unintentional effects. It is not within the scope of this chapter to deal with this question in detail.’5 Instead, we will argue that a fertility response to short-term economic stress can be viewed as an indicator of standard of living, regardless of whether that response is intentional or not. That an unintentional fertility response to economic hardship can be viewed as an indication of a low level of standard of living is probably not so controversial. A deliberate postponement of births in a year of economic stress must also indicate that the family is experiencing difficult times. Hence, we argue that our measure of the fertility response to economic stress, together with the results on the mortality response presented above, can serve as an indicator of the vulnerability of these families to economic fluctuations, and thus of their standard of living.The model estimated is very similar to the mortality models presented above; the chief difference being the inclusion of several age covariates to control for differences in fertility between women of different ages. Observation time is measured as the time since last birth and not age as in the mortality models. The results of model estimations are displayed in Table ’4.4.
For all three periods, we find the expected age pattern of fertility. Fertility is highest in the age groups below 30 and then drops off gradually at higher ages. In the two later periods, fertility seems to be lower in Hog, while there are no corresponding differences between the parishes in the first period. The year of birth is used to control for potential average cohort effects on fertility.Table ’4.4 shows some noteworthy differences between the three periods in the response to short-term economic stress. In the period ’766—18’5, we find a weak, but not significant, effect of prices on negative fertility; fertility drops ’.5% after a ’0% increase in prices. In the second period ’8’5—65, there is a stronger, and statistically significant effect and also find an almost equally strong effect up to two years after the price change. The total fertility decline during a two-year period, from a ’0% increase in food prices, is about 7%. During the final period, there is no significant effect, neither in year one nor in year two. Apparently the pattern in the previous two periods of fertility fluctuations being sensitive to economic fluctuations, as measured by rye prices, had been broken.
Table 14.4 Effects of food prices on fertility for landless and semi-landless in the four parishes, 1766—1895
| Covariate | 1766-1815 | 1815-65 | 1865-95 | ||||||
| Average | Model 1 | Model 2 | Average | Model 1 | Model 2 | Average | Model 1 | Model 2 | |
| Age | |||||||||
| 15-25 | 3.6% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 3.6% | 1.16 | 1.15 | 5.3% | 0.80. | 0.80. |
| 25-30 | 11.6% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 13.7% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 15.8% | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 30-35 | 18.6% | 0.85 | 0.85 | 20.8% | 0.83... | 0.83... | 20.8% | 0.78... | 0.78... |
| 35-40 | 22.5% | 0.60"' | 0.60,,∙ | 22.9% | 0.64... | 0.64... | 21.6% | 0.63... | 0.63... |
| 40-45 | 22.2% | 0.31-. | 0.30,,∙ | 21.4% | 0.34... | 0.34... | 20.5% | 0.31... | 0.31... |
| 45-50 | 21.4% | 0.10-. | 0.10*.. | 17.6% | 0.06... | 0.06... | 16.0% | 0.06... | 0.06... |
| Parish | |||||||||
| Hog | 15.6% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 19.3% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 13.8% | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Kavlinge | 22.0% | 0.96 | 0.96 | 24.8% | bgcolor=white>1.29...1.29... | 16.8% | 1.10 | 1.10 | |
| Halmstad | 29.0% | 1.07 | 1.07 | 30.0% | 1.37... | 1.37... | 24.9% | 1.32... | 1.32... |
| Sireko- pinge | 33.4% | 1.02 | 1.01 | 25.9% | 1.23... | 1.23... | 44.5% | 1.28.. | 1.28.. |
| Birth year | 1758.5 | 0.99∙∙ | 0.99*. | 1805.2 | 1.01... | 1.01... | 1843.9 | 1.01 | 1.01 |
| 10% increase in rye prices | 0.00 | -1.54% | -1.21% | 0.00 | -4.75%... | -4.16%... | 0.00 | 2.23% | 2.23% |
| 10% increase in rye prices, lagged one year | 0.01 | -1.00% | 0.00 | -2.58%.. | 0.00 | 0.59% | |||
| Events | — | 618 | 618 | — | 1,730 | 1,730 | — | 1,168 | 1,168 |
| Total time | 2,823.1 | 2,823.1 | — | 7,553.6 | 7,553.6 | — | 4,646.8 | 4,646.8 | |
| Max. log. likelihood | — | -3,708.5 | -3,708.4 | — | -11,957 | -11,955 | — | -7,572.6 | -7,572.6 |
| Chi-square test | — | 169 | 169 | — | 580 | 584 | — | 368 | 368 |
| Overall p- value | — | 0.000 | 0.000 | — | 0.000 | 0.000 | — | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Parame ters | — | 10 | 11 | — | 10 | 11 | — | 10 | 11 |
ponly the very neediest (the sick, the handicapped, and the elderly); a tiny percentage of the population, not large numbers. This near-total lack of recourse in hard times affected both the mortality and the fertility of the landless in such times.
Our results also shed some new light on the situation of the landless groups during the period of agricultural transformation in the first half of the nineteenth century. Earlier work has found that despite increasing agricultural productivity, the living standards of those on the bottom stayed low in this period. Our results not only support this view but also show that there are clear indications that the standard of living of the landless actually deteriorated during this transformation phase. Adult mortality of both males and females became highly responsive to economic stress, as did female child mortality.
Similarly, the fertility response seems to have strengthened and lasted longer, compared to the previous period. The agricultural transformation initially increased the ranks of the landless. Rural society became more differentiated. The standard of living of a great many individuals actually declined, while it rose for some of the new groups (cf. Winberg 1975). The salience of this development is highlighted by the increasing attention paid to the question of the poor from the 1830s onwards (see, for example, Olofsson 1996).Part of the explanation behind the increased vulnerability during the first decades of the nineteenth century might have been the enclosure reforms which dramatically transformed the countryside. Villages were broken up, and that made the situation for the landless more precarious in several respects. The immediate economic effect on the landless was often severe. They lost common land on which they had previously been able to raise livestock which they could either eat or sell. According to nineteenth-century observers, they were made much more dependent on wage labour (see Utterstrom 1957: 574—8). The enclosures made the landless more dependent on the market for employment as well as for consumption. In the long run the commercialization of agriculture led to a higher standard of living for the landless. In the short run, however, they were less able to feed themselves when they had no cash and wage labour was hard to find. Later on, in the second half of the
nineteenth century, when real wages started to increase substantially, the standard of living of the landless group also increased.
In addition, it is also possible that the breaking-up of the village communities following the enclosures, which increased the geographic isolation of many landless people, had some negative implications for the assistance given to the landless in times of economic stress. This too may have contributed to an increasing vulnerability to economic fluctuations for these people.
To conclude, our results show that this way of approaching the issue of the long-term standard of living development is a useful complement to other measures and provides an important additional dimension to the standard of living in the past. Our results corroborate previous findings on the increase in standard of living for broad groups in society during the second half of the nineteenth century, but also support a more negative view of the standard of living development of the landless during the agricultural transformation in the first half of the nineteenth century.