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This special section presents new research on the ways in which unmarried parents – particularly women – negotiated illegitimacy, how they interacted with urban institutions, and what legal resourc...

This article examines the locus of care of the elderly in the cities of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent at the end of the eighteenth century by investigating the circumstances of their decease. The article uses a cross-sectional analysis of the municipal death registers of 1797 to shed light on the informal networks and formal provisions that surrounded the urban elderly (aged 60 years and older) during their last days and shortly after their death. By evaluating the roles of hospitals and private houses as places of death and the presence of family and neighbours as witnesses, the article assesses both formal and informal channels of support. In addition, the article examines how the locus of care correlated with marital status, socio-economic position and migration background.

© 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this article, we study how potentially conflicting forces of socio-economic modernization and enduring language barriers influenced one of the most intimate acts of social interaction: marriage. In the period during which Belgium underwent social and economic modernization–often thought to have diminished barriers between social groups, increasing the likelihood of social heterogamy–linguistic barriers remained strong. The intriguing question is, what happens if socio-economic modernization coincides with persistent linguistic cleavages. We will study this by looking at marriage formation in communities in the province of (contemporary) Flemish Brabant and the Brussels Capital Region. We ask: How large were the temporal and municipal variations in homogamy by social status in the period 1821–1913? And can modernization and the existence of linguistic divisions explain these variations? We use two types of data: couple data from civil registration records in Flemish Brabant 1821–1913 (N = 333,729), and, for some analyses, context data on the municipality at the time of marriage to a shorter period, 1859–1910, and thus a lower number of marriages (N = 270,151). We find that during modernization a shift took place from homogamy on fathers’ status to homogamy on groom’s status, and we find partial support for the effect of language barriers. ispartof: History of the Family vol:24 issue:1 pages:94-122 status: published

AbstractAnthropometric traits observed during military medical examinations are excellent indicators of individual health and nutritional status, and more generally reflect historical socio-economic conditions. Historical demographers have shown little interest in the association of anthropometric traits with demographic family characteristics, except with sibship size according to the resource dilution hypothesis (RDH). In this study we present an analysis of both height and chest circumference of conscripts of Villagrande in Sardinia, Italy, born between 1853 and 1935. Among a total of 1499 conscripts who passed their first examination, height and chest circumference were recorded respectively for 1432 and 1253 conscripts. These traits were almost normally distributed around the average height of 157.60 cm and chest circumference of 81.89 cm. A multivariate regression analysis was performed using height or chest circumference as dependent variables and a set of demographic variables as potentially expla...

AbstractHeight is generally accepted as an indicator of well-being and the development of children in early childhood. Historical research shows a negative association between the height of individuals and their birth order. This is frequently explained by the resource dilution hypothesis. However, we question the negative effect of birth order on growth patterns in contemporary Flanders, where the fertility decline has stabilized and policies supporting the family are well established. Therefore, the first aim of this study is to examine the influence of birth order on early child development – in terms of height – in contemporary society. In addition, we control for socioeconomic and sociodemographic parameters. We use a longitudinal dataset of almost all births in Flanders between 2006 and 2009 (N = 291,230), together with check-ups (N = 2,949,169). All height measurements are standardized to conform to the international World Health Organization growth standards. Several statistical techniques are use...

AbstractDeclines in the age at last childbearing in the first demographic transition reflected conscious changes in fertility behaviour during that period, in particular efforts to limit the total number of children. Such fertility limitation behaviour was the net result of ‘cultural causal factors’ on the one hand and ‘structural and economic causal factors’ on the other hand. This paper analyses the evolution of women’s age at last childbearing by reconstructing women’s life histories based on data from the multi-source COR* historical sample for Antwerp in the period 1846–1920. The paper also assesses the causes of this evolution through a number of theoretically grounded structural/economic, cultural and life course determinants, placing these concepts in a macro-micro framework of methodological individualism. For this purpose, in the first place a Kaplan-Meier analysis is applied to 10-year birth cohorts; a proportional hazard model is also applied to three different birth cohorts (mothers born befo...

In this article the social networks and family ties of a pre-industrial (married and/or died between 1770 and 1850) and industrial (married and/or died between 1850 and 1950) cohort of deaf men and women are compared to each other and to a cohort of non-disabled siblings. The aim is to assess the extent to which the deaf participated in a full-fledged manner in family and social life and to evaluate the ways in which their social networks changed as a result of nineteenth-century industrialisation processes. The extent of social integration is deduced from the profile of the witnesses registered in marriage and death certificates. In the absence of personal testimonies of social experiences, demographic sources are invaluable for providing a glimpse of the everyday social life of ordinary people in the past. In combination with historical records identifying disabled individuals, this research is a first attempt to study the social opportunities of an up-until-now often forgotten, but nevertheless integra...

The absence of occupational titles for women in historical censuses has stymied numerous scholars. Various authors have explained this phenomenon as carelessness or bias on the part of the census-takers. Women's work was of little interest to the authorities and census officials focused their efforts upon the activities of the head of household. While source triangulation can be a useful tool for uncovering ‘hidden’ employment of women, it is often a complex and time-consuming process. In this article we outline an alternative to deal with the issue of missing occupations of single women in censuses by exploring their living arrangements. We identify four aspects of co-residence that can highlight the roles played within the household by single women without registered employment: their relation to the head of the household, and that individual's occupation, property and marital status. Comparing data from the 1814 population census regarding two social agro-systems and the city of Bruges, we argue that o...

peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rhof20 ispartof: The History of the Family vol:19 issue:1 pages:1-12 status: published