Forgotten family: the influence of women and children on the nexus of wage earning and demographic change in England, 1260–1860

Horrell, Sara ORCID: 0009-0002-6865-4142, Humphries, Jane and Weisdorf, Jacob (2024) Forgotten family: the influence of women and children on the nexus of wage earning and demographic change in England, 1260–1860. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 54 (3). 529 – 558. ISSN 1082-9636

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Abstract

E. A. Wrigley identified the responsiveness of nuptiality and marital fertility to changes in male wages. Others have theorized the importance of women's decision‐making in the timing of marriage, but without much empirical evidence. Combining new long‐run series of annual wages for men, for married and single women, and for children with existing demographic data, the influence of women and children's remuneration on household formation is investigated. Women played a key role in the functioning of early modern preventive checks. High wages encouraged single women to delay marriage, reducing marital fertility. This counterbalanced the encouragement of nuptiality stimulated by high male earnings, which helped balance population and economic growth. Juvenile earnings had little influence on family formation, challenging links suggested in accounts of protoindustrialization or proletarianization. Demographic evidence suggests that economic circumstances contributed to the timing of medieval marriage, but poverty more often than prosperity prompted celibacy.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://read.dukeupress.edu/jmems
Additional Information:	© 2024 Duke University Press
Divisions:	Economic History
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences
JEL classification:	N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income, and Wealth > N33 - Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income and Wealth: Europe: Pre-1913
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2023 16:33
Last Modified:	01 Nov 2024 05:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/120527

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