The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off During the Industrial Revolution in England
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The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off During the Industrial Revolution in England. / Klemp, Marc; Weisdorf, Jacob L.
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 2011.Research output: Working paper › Research
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TY - UNPB
T1 - The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off During the Industrial Revolution in England
AU - Klemp, Marc
AU - Weisdorf, Jacob L.
N1 - JEL classification: J13, N3, O10
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - We take Gary Becker's child quantity-quality trade-off hypothesis to the historical record, investigating the causal link from family size to the literacy status of offspring using data from Anglican parish registers, c. 1700-1830. Extraordinarily forhistorical data, the parish records enable us to control for parental literacy, longevity and social class, as well as sex and birth order of offspring. In a world without modern contraception and among the couples whose children were not prenuptially conceived we are able to explore a novel source of exogenous variation in family size: marital fecundability as measured by the time interval from the marriage to the first birth. Consistent with previous findings among historical populations, we document a large and significantly negative effect of family size on children's literacy.
AB - We take Gary Becker's child quantity-quality trade-off hypothesis to the historical record, investigating the causal link from family size to the literacy status of offspring using data from Anglican parish registers, c. 1700-1830. Extraordinarily forhistorical data, the parish records enable us to control for parental literacy, longevity and social class, as well as sex and birth order of offspring. In a world without modern contraception and among the couples whose children were not prenuptially conceived we are able to explore a novel source of exogenous variation in family size: marital fecundability as measured by the time interval from the marriage to the first birth. Consistent with previous findings among historical populations, we document a large and significantly negative effect of family size on children's literacy.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
M3 - Working paper
BT - The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off During the Industrial Revolution in England
PB - Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
ER -
ID: 33544527