IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6855.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Declines in Infant Mortality and Fertility: Evidence from British Cities in Demographic Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Newell, Andrew T.

    (University of Sussex)

  • Gazeley, Ian

    (University of Sussex)

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain was roughly halfway through a 60-year demographic transition with declining infant mortality and birth rates. Cities exhibited great and strongly correlated diversity in these rates. We demonstrate cross-section correlations with, for instance, women's employment, population density, literacy and improved water supply and sanitation, that have been linked to the transition. When we analyse data from the late 1850s and the early 1900s, the changes in the two rates are not correlated across cities, but we find a robust and large impact from sanitation improvement to long-period infant mortality reduction. We also find the extension of basic literacy is related to increases in female labour market participation, which is in turn related to fertility reduction. Lastly we find that more rapid urban growth accelerates fertility decline, but, in late 19th century Britain it slowed the reduction of infant mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Newell, Andrew T. & Gazeley, Ian, 2012. "The Declines in Infant Mortality and Fertility: Evidence from British Cities in Demographic Transition," IZA Discussion Papers 6855, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6855
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6855.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Galor, 2012. "The demographic transition: causes and consequences," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, January.
    2. Ian Gazeley & Andrew Newell, 2012. "The end of destitution: evidence from urban British working households 1904--37," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 80-102, January.
    3. Murthi, Mamta, 2002. "Fertility Change in Asia and Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 1769-1778, October.
    4. Dalton Conley & Gordon C. McCord & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2007. "Africa's Lagging Demographic Transition: Evidence from Exogenous Impacts of Malaria Ecology and Agricultural Technology," NBER Working Papers 12892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David Cutler & Grant Miller, 2005. "The role of public health improvements in health advances: The twentieth-century United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    7. Matthias Doepke, 2005. "Child mortality and fertility decline: Does the Barro-Becker model fit the facts?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 337-366, June.
    8. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gazeley, Ian & Newell, Andrew T., 2009. "The End of Destitution," IZA Discussion Papers 4295, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bailey, Roy E. & Hatton, Timothy J. & Inwood, Kris, 2014. "Health, Height and the Household at the Turn of the 20th Century," IZA Discussion Papers 8128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hatton, Tim, 2015. "Stature and Sibship: Historical Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 10675, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Shcherbakova, Nadezda, 2013. "Urbanization as a way of saving our planet from overpopulation," MPRA Paper 52299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Shcherbakova, N. V., 2019. "The role of biological and economic factors in urban population growth," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 5(3), pages 103-114.
    5. Nadia Diamond-Smith & David Bishai, 2015. "Evidence of Self-correction of Child Sex Ratios in India: A District-Level Analysis of Child Sex Ratios From 1981 to 2011," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 641-666, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    2. Jakob Madsen & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Testing unified growth theory: Technological progress and the child quantity‐quality tradeoff," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 235-275, January.
    3. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Alan Fernihough & Mark McGovern, 2014. "Do fertility transitions influence infant mortality declines? Evidence from early modern Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 1145-1163, October.
    5. Wang, Ruixin, 2015. "Essays on development economics and public economics," Other publications TiSEM e1779514-5b71-4726-925b-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Jun, Bogang, 2013. "The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from the Korean Development Path," MPRA Paper 43971, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Filoso, Valerio & Papagni, Erasmo, 2015. "Fertility choice and financial development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 160-177.
    8. Carolyn Chisadza & Manoel Bittencourt, 2015. "Education and Fertility: Panel Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201526, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    9. Robert TAMURA & David CUBERES, 2020. "Equilibrium and A-efficient Fertility with Increasing Returns to Population and Endogenous Mortality," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 157-182, June.
    10. Bhalotra, Sonia & Venkataramani, Atheendar & Walther, Selma, 2018. "Fertility and labor market responses to reductions in mortality," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Claude Diebolt & Faustine Perrin, 2013. "From Stagnation to Sustained Growth: The Role of Female Empowerment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 545-549, May.
    12. Papagni, Erasmo, 2018. "Fertility Transitions in Developing Countries: Convergence, Timing, and Causes," GLO Discussion Paper Series 248, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    13. David E. Bloom & Dara Lee Luca, 2016. "The Global Demography of Aging: Facts, Explanations, Future," PGDA Working Papers 13016, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    14. Bloom, D.E. & Luca, D.L., 2016. "The Global Demography of Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 3-56, Elsevier.
    15. Aso, Hiroki, 2020. "Demographic transition and Economic development : the role of child costs," MPRA Paper 99966, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Sascha O. Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2013. "Does women's education affect fertility? Evidence from pre-demographic transition Prussia," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 17(1), pages 24-44, February.
    17. Dhanushka Thamarapani & Marc Rockmore & Willa Friedman, 2018. "The Educational and Fertility Effects of Sibling Deaths," CINCH Working Paper Series 1801, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    18. Hatton, Timothy J. & Martin, Richard M., 2010. "Fertility decline and the heights of children in Britain, 1886-1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 505-519, October.
    19. Nandi, Arindam & Summan, Amit & Ngô, Thoại D. & Bloom, David E., 2024. "Childhood vaccinations and the demand for children: Long-term evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    20. Yoko Nakagaki, 2018. "Inverse J-Shaped Relationship between Fertility and Gender Equality: Different Relationships of the Two Variables According to Income Levels," Working Papers 165, JICA Research Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fertility; infant mortality; education and sanitary reform; women's participation; education; 19th century and early 20th century Britain;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6855. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.