Historical Demography
Historical Demography
Zhongwei Zhao
Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, Australian National University, Australia
Keywords: historical demography, population history, demographic transition, fertility decline, household formation, household composition, demographic data, historical data, parish registers, genealogies, population registers, household registers, census, census-type materials, vital registration, aggregated population statistics, family reconstitution, inverse projection, back projection, generalised inverse projection, computer simulation, micro-simulation, Coale’s fertility indices
Contents
1. Historical Demography
2. The Development of Historical Demography
2.1. The Early Development of Historical Demography in France
2.2. The Cambridge Group and the Advancement of Historical Demography in England
2.3. The Historical Investigation of Fertility Transition in Europe
2.4. Historical Demography in East Asia
2.5. Historical Demography in Other Areas and Its Recent Development
3. Major Data Sources for Historical Demography
3.1. Parish Registers
3.2. Population Registers and Census-type Materials
3.3. Family or Lineage Genealogies
3.4. Other Data Sources
4. Methodological Development
4.1. Family Reconstitution
4.2. Inverse Projection, Back Projection, and Generalised Inverse Projection
4.3. Computer Simulation
4.4. Coale’s Fertility Indices and Other Methodological Developments
5. Concluding Remarks: Historical Demography at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
Summary
Historical demography is an important component of demography. Its aim is to obtain detailed information about population changes and people’s demographic behaviour in the past through applying demographic methods to historical data. Since its establishment as an academic discipline in the mid-twentieth century, historical demography has advanced at a rapid pace and made significant contribution to the development of demographic theories and to our understanding of population changes in both historical and contemporary societies.
This chapter starts with the definition of historical demography, its relationship with demography and demographic history, and main reasons why historical demography established itself so rapidly in the 1950s. It then summarizes major developments in historical demography in the past half century. Following that the primary data sources available to historical demographers and some methodological developments made in historical demography are discussed. The chapter concludes with comments on the likely future challenges and opportunities for advancing historical demography in the world.
1. Historical Demography
Historical demography is commonly defined as the application of conventional and non-conventional demographic techniques to data sets from the past (Pressat and Wilson 1985; Smith 2003). Its primary aim is to obtain detailed demographic information and measure demographic changes such as changes in population size, age structure, sex ratio, fertility, mortality, and migration for populations in the past. While estimating the total population in a particular historical setting can be regarded as historical demography at its crudest level, the application of demographic methods to historical source materials and the information generated by such application can be far more elaborate.
Historical demography is closely related to, but differs from, demographic or population history. The former concentrates largely on obtaining the detailed and accurate demographic information for historical populations that provides the foundation for the study of demographic or population history. The latter includes historical demography as a field of enquiry, but covers wider research areas. Demographic history investigates not only the process of past population changes, but also the interrelationship between these changes and a wide range of socio-economic, political, cultural and environmental factors. In general, historical demography tends be more involved in tackling the technical problems of measuring past demographic changes and developing effective methods of analysing historical population data, whereas demographic history is more concerned with the reasons, processes and consequences of major demographic events, especially their long-term impact on socio-economic changes and historical development.
Population changes interact closely with, and play a major part in, political, social and economic changes. Through offering detailed and reliable demographic information about past societies, historical demography can greatly improve our knowledge of history and population history in particular. One of such examples is E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield’s monumental work The Population History of England 1541-1871 (1981). This study, based on extensive empirical evidence and demographic estimates, systematically examines population trends in England over a period of more three hundred years and the population theory proposed by Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834). The comprehensive analysis presented in this book provides great insights into demographic patterns and their interplay with socio-economic conditions in the time before and during the industrial revolution. The impact of this work has been felt far beyond the disciplinary confines of historical demography or population history.
While a distinction between historical demography and demographic history can be and has been made by some scholars, it is difficult in practice to draw a clear line between the two approaches and their practitioners. Demographic historians often need to have detailed and accurate demographic information as the foundation for their investigation into population history. Equally, historical demographers also want to examine socio-economic reasons for population changes and the impact of such changes on the society. Because of the close connection between the two disciplines, the discussion presented in this chapter will not be confined within the area narrowly defined by historical demography.
Historical demography is a major component of demography that studies population changes, but it is primarily concerned with applying demographic methods to population data from the past. Demographers wishing to test a proposed hypothesis on contemporary population can, at least theoretically, always collect the data they need according to their research design. Historical demographers, however, have to use existing data – they cannot go back in time to collect the required data. The available data may not have been collected for the purpose of demographic research; they may suffer from various types of registration problems or biases that are often related to the rules or procedures applied in creating the data. This makes historical demographic research a more challenging task than the study of contemporary population issues. For this reason, historical demographers often need to develop new techniques or modify conventional demographic methods so that they can be effectively used in analysing surviving historical data – a point that will be further discussed in section four of this chapter.
Historical demography has made a significant contribution to the development of demography. Through enriching the knowledge about demographic behaviour and population changes in the past, historical demography helps us to gain a better understanding of demographic trends in contemporary societies and future. Louis Henry (1911-1991), the founding father of historical demography, once suggested that, to answer the two questions about population changes that intrigued demographers in the mid-twentieth century, “Where are we?” and “Where are we headed?” we should begin by answering a third, “Where were we yesterday and the day before?”. This reference to the past is, he said, essential for it alone can tell us about the day after (Rosental 2003: 98). The importance of historical demography to the development of demography does not stop here, however. After the Second World War, there was a considerable increase in the interest in population issues throughout the world, and demography as an academic discipline entered a period of rapid development. Mortality and fertility, which had decreased notably in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, fell to low levels in most developed countries. These countries had well-established vital registration systems and conducted regular censuses and population surveys. Population data obtained through these modern-day efforts were, however, simply insufficient for uncovering the process of demographic transition and people’s demographic behaviour in the pre-transition society – both of which were of overriding importance to the development of demographic theories and the understanding of population changes of the time. Even in countries where detailed mortality and fertility data had been collected during the process of their demographic transition, those available to researchers were usually limited to published census or survey results. Public release of original census or vital registration records was often prohibited for long periods after the records were taken, whilst some countries destroyed the records altogether because of privacy concerns. Such practices gave historical demography a unique opportunity to fill important gaps in demographic research. As we shall see, the investigation of population changes in the past has contributed to the development of many important and widely used population theories, analytical models and demographic techniques.
2. The Development of Historical Demography
Although it is widely accepted that historical demography was established by the French demographer L. Henry in the 1950s, interest in population history had existed long before the twentieth century, and many researchers engaged in the study of past population changes and made great contributions to the development of historical demography. As early as the seventeenth century, John Graunt (1620-1674) already critically examined available demographic data. His insightful analysis led to the publication of a landmark study, Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality in 1662, which in many ways laid the foundation for the development of demography. Thomas Robert Malthus also systematically examined demographic data available to him, and published, between 1798 and 1826, six editions of his famous treatise, An Essay in the Principle of Population. Malthus’s population theory, though very controversial, has profoundly influenced the intellectual thinking, especially the development of population thoughts, in the world over the last two hundred years. Many other pioneers, such as William Petty (1623-1687), Gregory King (1648-1712), Johann Süssmilch (1707-1767); Adolphe Quételet (1796-1874), and William Far (1807-1883) were also involved in the study of population and in collecting and analysing demographic data between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Their works made direct contribution to historical demography and population studies, and further enriched demographic theories developed up to their time.
By the early twentieth century, interest in historical demography had grown significantly enough for a Commission for Historical Demography to be formed in 1928 under the auspices of the International Congress of Historical Sciences. The number of scholars working on historical demography and related issues continued to increase. Some researchers also started to explore the potential of using surviving parish records of births, marriages, and burials in the study of population history. In the 1940s, for example, Hannes Hyrenius, a Swedish demographer, analysed parish registers and applied methods similar to those used by Henry a decade later. The impact of Hyrenius’ work was rather limited, however, partly because it was published in Swedish, and appeared during the Second World War (Rosental 2003). A great change took place after the war. Historical demography established itself as an academic discipline in the 1950s and soon entered a period of rapid development (Wrigley, 1981; Saito 1996).
2.1. The Early Development of Historical Demography in France
Differing greatly from that predicted on the basis of the pre-war downward fertility trend, a baby boom took place in many countries after the Second World War. This unexpected change puzzled many demographers and the uncertainty surrounding the upsurge in fertility also shook their confidence in correctly forecasting future population trends. There was a further matter that had long concerned demographers and politicians in France. In comparison with other European countries, fertility decline started much earlier in France and its fertility had remained low for many decades. To explain such fertility differentials and their recent changes, and to improve the ability of providing reliable population forecast, there was an urgent need to get a better understanding of people’s reproductive behaviour and related issues.
L. Henry, working at the Institut National d’Études Démographiques (INED), was one of the researchers who were actively involved in pursuing these studies at the time. Henry believed that, to identify the underlying causes of changes in reproductive behaviour and fertility, demographers needed not only to obtain detailed information about marriage patterns and marital fertility, but also to distinguish and measure controlled and uncontrolled fertility. He defined an important theoretical concept: natural fertility. According to him, deliberate birth control ‘can be said to exist when the behavior of the couple is bound to the number of children already born and is modified when this number reaches the maximum which the couple does not want to exceed.’ Natural fertility is deemed to exist in the absence of such deliberate birth control (Henry 1961: 81). Although the concept of natural fertility has certain limitations, (for example, it does not consider the issue of non-parity related fertility control) it has been widely accepted in the study of fertility and its transition. With these distinctions, demographers would be able to explain whether variations in overall fertility were due to changes in marriage behaviour, to what extent the observed fertility reduction was the result of falling marital fertility, and how far the recorded fertility departed from the uncontrolled or natural fertility. In order to measure changes in fertility, Henry also, in parallel with Norman Ryder, developed the concept of Parity Progression Ratio, an important fertility indicator in demography, and the method of computing it (Henry 1953).
Like the efforts made by other demographers at the time, Henry’s initial investigation was constrained considerably by the lack of data. As pointed out in the last section, fertility had been falling for several decades if not more than a century in some developed countries. Their recent demographic data simply did not allow demographers to answer questions about uncontrolled fertility (if it had existed) and its early reduction. To place his theory of natural fertility on solid empirical evidence, and to provide detailed description and explanation of fertility decline, Henry turned to historical population data. He first examined genealogical records made of Geneva’s ruling class families from the mid-sixteenth century. The analysis of these records provided considerable insight into the demographic behaviour of this urban elite and showed that their mortality and fertility already started declining in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century (Henry 1956). This population belonged to a special social group, however, and the demographic patterns recorded among them were expected to be different from those observed in the general population.
To overcome this problem, Henry and his colleagues turned to the surviving parish records of baptism, burial and marriage of the village of Crulai, in Normandy, France. These parish records run in an unbroken series from the mid-seventeenth century to the French Revolution, and provided detailed demographic information. These details ensured that most of the records could be correctly linked to one another, making them an invaluable data source for the study of demographic patterns in the past and their historical changes. In spite of their potential value for demographic research, the parish records were not originally created for demographic investigation, and they could not be analysed easily using conventional demographic methods. This provided Henry with a major methodological challenge. His response was to develop a method that had similarities to, but was demographically more rigorous than, those previously used by Hyrenius. This method is now known as family reconstitution and will be further discussed later in this chapter. With the method, Henry and his colleagues were able to reconstruct the demographic history for a large proportion of the individuals whose baptism, marriage and burial records were kept in the parish, to establish the kinship relation between these people, and to reconstitute their families. The results gave Henry and his group a rare opportunity to examine the demographic history of Crulai. Their work led to numerous interesting discoveries about demographic behaviour, and changes in fertility, mortality, and marriage patterns in Crulai over the period from the mid-seventeenth century to the French Revolution (Gautier and Henry 1958).
Following this success, large scale family reconstitution studies, overseen by Henry, were carried out in INED. These studies showed that there were great variations in fertility, mortality and marriage patterns in France in the last few hundred years, and the variations were often related to differences or changes in socio-economic and environmental conditions. These results were subsequently found to be broadly similar to those observed in other parts of Europe. What distinguished France from its European counterparts was its early reduction in marital fertility. ‘A demographic revolution’ was witnessed in many parts of the nation at the time of the French Revolution, long before such changes occurred in the rest of Europe. These discoveries and the new knowledge gained from such historical demographic investigations led to a major reinterpretation of early modern French history (Goubert 1970).
Henry’s pioneering work exerted a profound impact on the advancement of demography and the investigation of population history. It offered an important conceptual framework directly linking historical demographic investigations to important contemporary population issues and applied a powerful method of family reconstitution to parish registers that were widely available in western countries. Under this influence, historical demography soon entered an era of repaid development.
2.2. The Cambridge Group and the Advancement of Historical Demography in England
Another milestone in the development of historical demography was the founding of Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure in 1964. As its name suggests, research activities at the Cambridge Group concentrated, particularly in the early years, largely on the following two areas: (a) population trends in historical England and their inter-relationship with socio-economic changes; and (b) micro-social structure, especially household formation and composition, and its impact on the society.
Work on population history at the Cambridge Group also started with family reconstitution. E. A. Wrigley published his family reconstitution results for Colyton, an English parish in East Devon, in 1966 (Wrigley 1966a). The paper immediately attracted the attention of demographers and historians and greatly promoted the development of historical demography. Wrigley and his colleagues were aware that findings derived from the family reconstitution for a small area were likely to be affected by random variations that limited the broader relevance of the results. They therefore launched a much larger investigation.
Over the next three decades, researchers at the Cambridge Group coordinated family reconstitution of Anglican registers of many English parishes, which were the most important data source for the investigation of demographic changes in England before the modern census started. The work of the Cambridge Group was particularly concentrated on 26 parishes where better registers were available, and this led to the reconstruction of their population history between 1580 and 1837. The results of this reconstruction, as Wrigley and his colleagues evidently show, ‘are representative not only of the demographic situation of the parishes from which the data were drawn, but also of the country as a whole’. Their analysis of past demographic behaviours and their outcomes has been conducted in such detail that now much more has been ‘known about many aspects of English demography in the parish register period than about the post-1837 period when the Registrar-General collected and published information’ (Wrigley et al. 1997: cover page). Today, English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837 is widely seen as one of the most significant and influential books ever published in historical demography.
Because of the vast amount of work involved in family reconstitution, it is very difficult to apply the method to a national or sub-national population with a large size. Although the family reconstitution undertaken in both INED and the Cambridge Group was conducted by many researchers and took a long time to complete, the total number of parishes for which the population history was reconstructed consisted of only one per cent or less of the total number of parishes in historical England and France. Moreover, while family reconstitution can produce data on population flows such as number of births, deaths and marriages in a given period, it alone cannot provide information about population stocks in a particular area which are also subject to the influence of migration. Without information about total population, aggregate measures such as birth rates, death rates and natural increase rates cannot be computed. To overcome this limitation and to make as full use as possible of parish registration data, researchers at the Cambridge Group undertook, mainly in the 1970s, another investigation into English population history. This study, using aggregated demographic data collected from 404 parishes and the method of ‘back projection’ that will be discussed later, produced detailed demographic estimations for English population for the period between 1541 and 1871. Based on the reconstructed demographic statistics, E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield thoroughly examined the applicability of the population theory put forward by Malthus and the relationship between changes in economic conditions especially real wages and changes in people’s demographic behaviours. Their findings were reported in another significant publication in historical demography, The Population History of England 1541-1871 (Wrigley and Schofield 1981).
Another major research area vigorously pursued by the Cambridge Group, especially in the early years since its establishment, was the study of family and household in past times. Before the 1960s, it was widely believed that large complex households had predominated in the past and they were only replaced by nuclear households during the process of industrialization or modernization. Similar views were held concerning the existence of very early female marriage ages in pre-transition Europe. Peter Laslett (1915-2001) analyzed surviving population registers collected from two English villages, Clayworth and Cogenhoe, and showed that the majority of households in the two populations were small in size and simple in structure even before the Industrial Revolution (Laslett 1965 and 1966). At about the same time J. Hajnal, one of Laslett’s close collaborators, identified, using early censuses and listings of inhabitants, the existence from at least 1500 of a European marriage pattern. He showed that women in Europe, except for the eastern and southeastern portion, married in their mid-twenties and up to 20 per cent never married at all, and newly married couples generally set up their independent households (Hajnal 1965). These results surprised many researchers, especially family historians.
Under Laslett’s leadership and influence, a large scale international comparative study was started in Britain and several other countries. The study found that household formation and composition in historic North and West Europe had the following characteristics. Large number of children left home in their early or mid-teens and worked as apprentices or servants in households that were not related to them. Males and females generally married late, most forming their own households at marriage. Households were relatively small in size and consisted in most cases of a single nuclear family. They rarely had more distant kin although the presence of non-relatives was not uncommon (Laslett and Wall 1972). These characteristics and practices were later summarized by Hajnal as the nuclear household formation system in contrast to the joint family system (Hajnal 1983). The research findings provided great insights into micro-social structure in the past, and were essential to our understanding of the relationship between demographic patterns and changes in economic conditions observed in historical Europe.
While these discoveries began to shatter widespread beliefs about the pre-modern society of Western and Northern Europe, England in particular, researchers were aware that the findings were drawn from a limited number of case studies and might not represent the general pattern in the national population. There was also the question of whether the predominance of simple family households observed was the product of demographic constraints such as low fertility, high mortality, late marriage, and low marriage rates rather than the outcome of people’s residential preferences or social norms. To examine these possibilities and other concerns, K. Wachter, E. Hammel, and P. Laslett applied computer micro-simulation and sophisticated statistical analysis to the investigation of household formation and composition. Their studies helped to confirm Laslett’s early findings about the pre-modern English household formation system, and brought computer micro-simulation into the domain of historical research (Wachter et al. 1978).
2.3. The Historical Investigation of Fertility Transition in Europe
At about the same time as the Cambridge Group began its investigations into English population and social history, another major effort made in historical demography by scholars in Europe and North America was also launched under the title, the European Fertility Project. This project, organized by the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, had two principal objectives: to provide detailed quantitative information about the fertility experience of over six hundred provinces of Europe during the period of their demographic transition; and to identify the social and economic conditions that prevailed at the time when the modern reduction in fertility started (Coale and Treadway 1986).
Researchers involved in this project collected large amounts of fertility data for more than six hundred European provinces, recorded over a period of more than one hundred years (data collected for European aristocracies covered a much longer period). A set of fertility indices (If, Ig, Ih and Im), which will be discussed later, was developed and calculated at ten-year intervals for each of the provinces included in the study. Analysis of these data showed that, while noticeable fertility fluctuations (including reductions) were observed in pre-transition societies such as England in the mid-seventeenth century, sustained fertility decline in most European countries other than France only took place in the late nineteenth century. This decline was far more complicated than that described by classical demographic transition theory. It was first observed in Northwest Europe, followed by peripheral areas in Southern and Eastern Europe. If France was excluded, more than half of the six hundred European provinces began their long-term fertility decline between 1890 and 1920. While there were provincial leaders and laggards in this transition, the differences between the onsets of their fertility decline were not very large. By 1930, most provinces had already witnessed a more than 50 per cent fertility reduction from their pre-transition level (Watkins 1986).
The European Fertility Project found that in pre-transition societies fertility fluctuations were often related to changes in marriage patterns, whilst changes in fertility behaviour within marriage were a major factor explaining the secular fertility decline during the demographic transition. The project also showed that in most pre-transition populations, fertility levels of married, or of all, women were considerably lower than among the Hutterites, a religious group who lived in the United States and Canada and was widely credited with the highest recorded fertility. Differing from the stylised description offered by classical demographic transition theory, fertility levels and patterns varied greatly across regions in pre-transition Europe. Fertility decline tended to start earlier in populations who lived in urban areas, had better education or experienced a lower infant mortality than in populations living in rural areas, with less education or experiencing a relatively high infant mortality; but the relationship between fertility decline and industrialization (as measured by proportion of people engaged in agriculture), levels of literacy and infant mortality was not strong. The socio-economic conditions under which fertility began to decline in these European provinces were also remarkably different. Interestingly, while it is difficult to, on the basis of economic conditions, determine the threshold of sustained fertility decline, similar fertility changes were often recorded in populations sharing common cultural tradition, language or religion. Although the evidence uncovered by the European Fertility Project did not offer a strong support for the classical demographic transition theory, it significantly enriched our knowledge about the demographic transition in Europe by providing great insights about pre-transition fertility regimes, and their profound changes during the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century.
2.4. Historical Demography in East Asia
Historical demography has also made remarkable progress in East Asia in recent decades. In Japan, A. Hayami, also strongly influenced by Henry’s family reconstitution work, started his research in historical demography in the late 1960s. Since then, an increasing number of studies has been carried out by Japanese scholars, shedding new light on Japanese population history. According to available evidence, population registration had already existed in Japan in the eighth century. Records surviving from this period are often very fragmented, however, and do not provide enough information on which to base systematic demographic analysis. Most published studies are conducted using demographic data recorded since the seventeenth century. The primary data sources for Japanese historical demography are population registers (Ninbetsu Aratame Cho) and religious faith investigation registers (Shumon Aratame Cho), although other data sources such as death registers compiled by Buddhist temples, are also used.
On the basis of their examination of these historical data, Japanese scholars considerably revised previous population estimates for the early Tokugawa period. They have shown that, although the national population growth stagnated in the late Tokugawa period, there were marked regional variations in population growth. These variations were closely related to major disasters taking please during this time, migration to the cities, and the relatively high mortality recorded in urban areas. Their analysis of surviving population registers has uncovered much detail about marriage, fertility, mortality, migration, and residential patterns in pre-modern Japan (Hayami 2001; Saito 1990; Tsuya and Kurosu 2004). Hayami’s studies, for example, have shown that there were large age differences between husbands and wives in some historical Japanese populations. Marital fertility among women born after 1700, those between 1751 and 1800 in particular, was moderate or low in comparison with that observed in many historical European populations. The age structure of deaths differed considerably between urban and rural areas. The studies have also revealed that work-related migration was common in some regions, where many people worked away from home (dekasegi). These population movements exerted a notable impact on women’s age at marriage, levels of fertility, and age patterns of death in urban and rural areas (Hayami 2001).
China has had a sophisticated population registration system since ancient times and still possesses a large collection of officially produced demographic statistics. These records, along with those made privately (for example family genealogies), provide valuable data sources for historical demography. Although studies of population history have been confined almost entirely to the examination of summary population figures calculated at national or provincial levels in Mainland China, great progress has been made in the analysis of demographic data recorded at the level of individuals in recent decades by scholars working in Taiwan and western countries.
T. Liu (1992) systematically analysed 50 lineage or family genealogies collected from 12 provinces in China. These genealogies record nearly 300,000 people belonging to more than 20 generations who lived mostly between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Liu and her research team examined marriage, fertility, and mortality patterns in the lineages, their population growth, demographic constraints on household formation, social status of lineage members, and major socio-economic functions of lineages and families. The study offers a good example of using genealogical materials for demographic investigations, and provides remarkably detailed information on population changes among these lineage populations during China’s Ming-Qing periods (1368-1911).
Another major effort in pursuing Chinese historical demography is the work of J. Lee and his collaborators. Their studies are based primarily on two types of historical records. The first is the Qing imperial lineage genealogies, which are of high quality, especially in the early period. These data provide unique opportunities for the investigation of demographic behaviour in the population and for the study of fertility and infant mortality in the past. The second is the population registers of people living in various parts in China during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which are census-type records updated (or collected) every three years. Lee and his collaborators have examined the demographic history of these populations. On the basis of their findings and those reported by other scholars, they have challenged the Malthusian view that historical China was ‘the prime example of a society dominated by the positive check and virtually devoid of any preventive check’. According to Lee and his collaborators, ‘Chinese demographic behiviour not only provides an alternative demographic model’ to the one proposed by Malthus; ‘it also reveals that many differences in population behaviour between East and West are a product of regional and historical differences in social organization rather than of different population checks’ (Lee and Wang 1999: 5 and 7; Lee and Campbell 1997).
Studies conducted by T. Telford, S. Harrell and Z. Zhao have also made contributions to the development of Chinese historical demography. Aside from using genealogical data and computer micro-simulation to study marriage, fertility, mortality, and potential residential patterns in the past, these researchers have systematically examined major under-registration problems found in genealogical records and the potential biases of using such data in the study of demographic changes (Harrell 1987 and 1995; Telford 1986 and 1990; Zhao 1994 and 2001). Their studies provided useful references for those who use genealogical records in their research.
One of the major research findings in Chinese historical demography is that marital fertility was, as in Japan, relatively low in Chinese history compared with that in many historical European populations. Chinese women married at relatively young ages, but their birth intervals (both between marriage and first birth and between successive births) were relatively long. They also stopped having children at relatively young ages. Some scholars have suggested that the relatively low marital fertility was an indication of deliberate control of fertility or family size (Lee and Wang 1999; Zhao 1997). These findings have important theoretical implications, and have stimulated considerable debate and much further research into these issues in recent years.
2.5. Historical Demography in Other Areas and Its Recent Development
In addition to the development discussed above, a large number of historical demographic investigations have been undertaken in Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, the United States of America and many other countries in the last few decades. Similar studies have also been conducted in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, although they tend to be relatively small in scale and carried out by fewer researchers in comparison with those in other areas. These studies are not detailed here because they are, in many respects such as methods, data sources, and questions being examined, similar to those discussed in previous sections. Nonetheless, two recent developments are worth further commenting.
The first development is observed in some European, especially north European, countries. Many of these countries possess historical data covering a long period, with good quality and much detailed information. For example, Sweden began compulsory parish registration in the second half of the seventeenth century, and since the mid-eighteenth century, records of causes of death and continuous instrument-based measurements of surface temperature have also been collected in some areas. Detailed demographic and non-demographic data of this kind provide researchers with a unique opportunity to examine many questions that have never been examined before. For example, historical demographers have, using such data, examined the effects of childhood experiences such as stress in early life on old age mortality (Bengtsson and Lindstrom 2000). The richness of these historical data also generates great interest in inter-disciplinary research among scholars with different academic backgrounds such demography, epidemiology, history, genetic and environmental sciences. One such example is a recent investigation of the impact of ambient temperature on the sex ratio at birth and male longevity, which has been conducted using historical demographic and meteorologic data collected from Demark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden (Catalano, Bruckner and Smith 2008).
Another important development in historical demography is the increase in international research collaboration, as demonstrated by the Eurasia Population and Family History Project, which was initialized by A. Hayami in 1993. Researchers involved in this project assembled rich historical data from five countries: Belgium, China, Italy, Japan and Sweden, which provided detailed social and demographic information for recorded individuals and their households and communities. Through their examination of these materials, the researchers compared population dynamics in the five countries during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. Their research findings have been reported in a large number of articles and several books and conference proceedings (Bengtsson, Campbell and Lee 2004). This project has a number of features that distinguish it from others. First, historical demographic data gathered from these populations have been analysed using similar and sophisticated statistical methods, which has gone beyond many previous studies. Second, demographic behaviour of individuals have been analysed in the context of their household structure, socio-economic profiles of their community and their social status and positions within the family, which has brought about considerable insights on how people’s demographic behaviour and its variations were influenced by cultural values and micro social structure. The research project provides a good example of international collaboration in advancing historical demography.
3. Major Data Sources for Historical Demography
Many countries possess rich historical demographic data, and they have become increasingly accessible in recent years thanks to the progress made in historical demography and the advancement in computer technologies. This section briefly describes some of the most important data sources used in the investigation of population history.
3.1. Parish Registers
Parish registers are records of baptisms, marriages, and burials made by ecclesiastical authorities. They have been the most widely used and the most rewarding historical data source in the study of European population history.
Keeping parish records already existed in certain Italian city states in the late medieval period. The practice spread first to western France and England, then to most of western and central Europe. By the eighteenth century, registering baptisms, marriages and burials was widely observed in many European countries and their overseas colonies (Willigan and Lynch 1982). In England, for example, parish registration was established in 1538 by Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) who ordered the clergy to record all baptisms, marriages, and burials performed in the Christian church. During the next three centuries continuous efforts were made to maintain and improve such registration. This resulted in a huge collection of parish registers, many of which are still available today. The importance of parish registers as major records of vital events and the primary data source for historical demography was only replaced by the civil registration and modern censuses during the nineteenth century.
The level of detail of parish records varies considerably across region and over time. Some entries are very simple and include only the name of the person who was baptised, buried, or married, and the date of the event. Others give a more elaborate description of the individuals and families affected by these events. Thus, a baptism record may also contain the date and the place of birth, the names of the parents, and the occupation or the rank of the father. A marriage record may provide information on the ages of the bride and groom, their past marriage history, their parents’ names, occupation or rank, and the occupation of the groom. A burial entry may include the age, occupation or rank, normal place of residence of the deceased, and even the cause of death. In general, the extensiveness of information contained in parish registers tends to increase over time, and many detailed records were found in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Willigan and Lynch 1982).
While these records may at first glance not seem to be very useful for demographic analysis, the technique of family reconstitution can transform them into a comprehensive data set consisting of detailed information on all, or most, of the demographic events experienced by the recorded individuals. This gives parish registers a privileged position as the key data source for understanding the demographic history of many European countries and their overseas colonies from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.
The parish registers as a major data source for demographic studies have some limitations, however. As a type of religious records compiled by the Christian church, parish registers might cover only part of the whole population living in an area. People with other religious faiths were usually excluded from such registration. Because baptism, marriage, and burial registration recorded only people involved in such events and did not have information on migration (except data about those married into the parish), they cannot provide accurate information on the total population in a parish at any particular point in time. Moreover, these records do not provide information on residential patterns or co-residing family members, although the relationship between family members may, in many cases, be determined on the basis of these data.
While parish registers do not exist in non-Christian populations, records sharing a similar nature were also found in some countries. In historical Japan, for example Kakocho or Books of the Past, were compiled by many Buddhist Temples. Kakocho also listed people who had died sometimes including their age at death, causes of death, and the date of death, providing an important data source that has been used for the study of demographic change in the past (Hayami 2001; Jannetta and Preston 1991).
3.2. Population Registers and Census-type Materials
While often differing from modern censuses, census-like operations have long existed in many parts of the world. Governments have collected population data in order to obtain reliable information for military drafts, corvees, and taxation purpose. Governments or religious authorities have also gathered the required demographic data through maintaining and updating various population registers. Thanks to these efforts, a formidable amount of historical population data has been accumulated in many countries. In China, for example, aggregated population statistics computed at national, provincial and prefectural levels for the year 2 AD are still available. Population registers made during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) have been discovered in Dunhuang. Surviving records of this kind, especially those made in the last few centuries, have increasingly been found and used in historical demography in recent years (Lee and Campbell 1997; Liao 2001).
Population registers and census-type materials are particularly abundant in East Asia. Hukou Ce made in the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911) and used by J. Lee and his collaborators (Lee and Campbell 1997), Ninbetsu Aratame Cho produced in Japan during the Tokugawa era (1603-1868) and used by many Japanese scholars (Hayami 2001), and Hojǒk compiled in Korea over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and used by K. Kim (2005) all belong to this type of records. Historical data of similar nature also exist in other parts of the world. For example, population registers made in the nineteenth century have been found in some parts Italy, Belgium and Sweden, and used in recent investigations of population changes in the past (Campbell 2004; Bengtsson, Campbell and Lee 2004).
These population registers and census-type materials were generally maintained for governmental administrative purposes such as tax collection, but they might also have religious purposes. Shumon Aratami Cho, for example, literally meaning ‘religious faith investigation registers’. These registers were widely used during Japan’s Tokugawa period to control the spread of Christianity. They recorded religious beliefs and detailed demographic information on household members. Similarly, catechetical examination registers, which are essentially a kind of population register, were produced and used by clergymen in Sweden to identify eligible parishioners whose knowledge of the Bible was to be examined (Campbell 2004). Listings of inhabitants were also compiled by clergymen in some parts of England (Laslett 1966).
Population registers and census-type materials generally record the population living in a particular area with a clearly defined boundary. Residents are normally listed by households and the relationship between household members and household heads is usually indicated. Some registers also include the age, sex, marital status, and occupation of household members, as well as other useful information such as land holding of the household. All these properties make the population registers and census-type materials particularly useful for historical study of micro-social structures. However, records of this type do not usually include information on number of births, deaths, and marriages, and therefore do not allow computing birth, death, and marriage rates; although these rates may be estimated if successive population registers or census data are available.
3.3. Family or Lineage Genealogies
Genealogy is the written record of family or lineage members, which recounts one’s descent from an ancestor or ancestors by enumeration of the intermediate persons. Constructing genealogies has a long history, and the practice is found in many societies, especially those in a new frontier where a large number of migrants settled and those where lineage organizations formed an important social institution and the worship of ancestors was widely encouraged. Genealogies vary greatly in their format and levels of detail. In their simplest form genealogies list lineage or family members and the relationship between them, but they can also record detailed social demographic information such as dates of birth, death, and marriage, and academic and political achievements of their members. These records provide a rich mine of information for historical research.
Genealogies distinguish themselves from other population records in a number of ways. People recorded in genealogies normally have common ancestry. The generation to which a recorded member belongs, and the relationship between recorded lineage members, are all clear. This makes genealogical records very useful in the study of social mobility of the family, population genetics, and heterogeneity. Differing from most other population records, which are usually obtained from clearly defined territories, or particular social or religious groups in certain areas, people recorded in genealogies are less, if at all, restricted by their place of residence. Because of that genealogies cannot provide information on the total population of a given region, but they can be very useful for the study of geographic movements of lineage or family members and migration patterns if such information is available. Another notable feature of genealogies is that some extend over many generations and contain much information, which provide rare opportunities for the study of early population history.
The way in which genealogies are compiled also makes them differ from other historical population data. Genealogies are often constructed by people of several generations, usually under different circumstances, and over a long period. The rules of compiling genealogies, or the implementation of such rules, may change from time to time. The interval between the time when a certain social demographic event took place and when the event was recorded in the genealogy could be very long. While genealogical records have many desirable qualities, in comparison with other historical population data they are more likely to have suffered from selective biases, which arise mainly from the following influences.
First, because genealogies were usually constructed for the purpose of recording and glorifying the history of the family or lineage other than demographic research, certain family members, for example, children who died young, female descendants who are often regarded as less important to the family in a patrilineal society, and persons who have brought disgrace to the family, are frequently excluded from genealogies. Genealogies also tend to be compiled by families or lineages with relatively high socio-economic status (Harrell 1987; Telford 1990; Zhao 1994).
Second, genealogies can be constructed in different ways. The compilation of a genealogy may be started from and by people who lived hundreds or even thousands years ago, their descendants being later added into the genealogy generation by generation. This results in a descendant genealogy. Alternatively, a genealogy can be compiled by a person or a group of people of later generations who trace their ancestors generation by generation back through time and add them into the genealogy. This produces an ascendant genealogy. Genealogies compiled in this backward fashion are most likely to obtain the records of ancestors from church books, vital registrations, or other data sources. The genealogies, therefore, can be viewed as secondary data sources. Since ascendant genealogies require that each generation to have at least one member surviving into adulthood and to produce at least one child, they tend to exhibit lower mortality and higher fertility than the general population.
Third, many available genealogies are records of lineages that survived to the time when the genealogies were updated last time or collected, which could be hundreds of years since the start of their compilation. One reason, among many, that these lineages could avoid extinction is that they have experienced favourable demographic conditions such as higher fertility, lower mortality, young ages of marriage, and higher proportion marrying, which all promote population growth. Among survival patrilineages that extend through the male line, sex ratios may also be higher than the population as a whole. Biases of this kind tend to be found in the first few generations recorded in a genealogy, and their impact becomes less observable thereafter (Zhao 2001).
3.4. Other Data Sources
While parish registers, population registers, census-type materials, family and lineage genealogies are the most widely used data in historical demography, other data sources are available and can be used in the study of population history as well. In one of the earliest books devoted to historical demography, T. H. Hollingsworth listed nineteen data sources that, in addition to those already discussed above, include Bills of Mortality, vital registration data, fiscal documents, military records, inventories of property, wills, marriage settlements, eye-witness estimates, long-term price records, the number and extent of towns, archaeological remains, methods of agricultural economy, ecclesiastical and administrative geography, new buildings, colonization of new land, cemetery data from both skeletons and tombstone inscriptions (Hollingsworth 1969). The list can be extended further. For example, detailed land registers made in Chinese history, biographical information on ‘virtuous women’ and ‘faithful widows’ kept in historical Chinese county record books, convict indents which detailed the convicts sent to Australia, and other migration records such as ship lists could all provide useful demographic information and have been used in the study of past population changes. In comparison with the data sources discussed in the previous three sub-sections, these data tend to be less common, more selective and more difficult to handle. They are, therefore, less frequently used in demographic research.
Aside from historical data recorded at the level of individuals or households, many countries also accumulated considerable amounts of aggregated population statistics (for example population totals by regions) throughout their history. These data also shed light on population changes in the past and can be used in historical demography. Fluctuations in recorded population totals often reflect both actual demographic changes and the strength and influence of the government or the size of the area under its jurisdiction. Statistics of this kind can also be influenced by the purposes of, and procedures used in, collecting these data, and suffer from various types of under or over registrations.
A further data source that is of great importance for the international comparative study of population history consists of various demographic databases recently constructed around the world. One such example is IPUMS-International (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series – International). The project began in 1999 and is managed by the Population Centre at the University of Minnesota. Its objective is to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata collected around world. By the year 2002, a preliminary database comprising 48 million people in six countries was already released. Since then much larger amounts of census data obtained from many more countries have been added into the database and subsequently released worldwide. Although most of these census records were collected in the twentieth century, they will increasingly become an important data source for the study of recent population history. Another example is the HMD (Human Mortality Database) created by the Department of Demography at University of California, Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. This database, which contains detailed mortality data collected from more than 30 countries over the last three centuries, has already been used in more than 200 studies.
4. Methodological Development
Because historical demographers are often required to work with surviving population data that were not collected for the purpose of demographic research and thus difficult to use, they have frequently turned to non-conventional and sometimes sophisticated methods to accomplish their analysis. Partly for this reason, historical demography has made several major contributions to the advancement of demographic techniques over the past half century. Some of these developments are summarized in the following sub-sections.
4.1. Family Reconstitution
Family reconstitution is a technique of record linkage. It brings together scattered demographic information from baptism, marriage and burial records, and reconstructs the demographic history of individuals and their families. The technique is widely used by historical demographers in Europe and North America where large numbers of parish registers are available (Levine 2003).
High quality parish records are the foundation for family reconstitution. Detailed baptism, marriage and burial records give information about a person’s birth and childbearing (date of birth or baptism, the name of the new-born, the names of the parents and maybe the occupation of the father), marriage (date of marriage, the names and ages of the bride and groom and sometimes their marriage history) and death (date of death or burial, the name, sex and age of the deceased). When linked together, these records could provide a detailed account of the demographic history for an individual and important information for his or her immediate family members.
Family reconstitution can be carried out either manually or by computers. To assemble available demographic and sometimes non-demographic information relating to a marriage, Henry developed the Family Reconstitution Form (FRF). The FRF or similar forms were used widely by historical demographers involved in family reconstitution studies before computer software was developed to complete the task. Although not exactly the same, these forms are generally used to record the date of the marriage, dates of birth (or baptism) and death (or burial) of the husband and wife, and dates of birth (or baptism) and death (or burial) of their children. Occasionally, related socio-economic information is also recorded on these forms. The linked data are then analysed using conventional demographic methods to generate required population statistics (Fleury and Henry 1956; Wrigley 1966b). When performed manually, family reconstitution is very time consuming. Partly for this reason, many early studies involved only a small number of parishes. Rapid advances in computer technology have prompted the development of computer-based and more efficient methods of record linkage. Thanks to this improvement, large scale family reconstitution studies have been conducted successfully in several countries in the world.
Family reconstitution is a very effective way of deriving useful demographic information from baptism, marriage, and burial records. Demographic history reconstructed using this method sometimes provides more detailed and reliable information than that obtained from retrospective surveys, which may be biased by respondent’s recall errors. Moreover, because parish registration was maintained for hundreds of years in many countries, demographic records generated through linking these registers have become one of the most significant data sources for the study of long-term population changes.
Because of the constraint imposed by parish registers that allow only births, marriages, and deaths to be inferred from recorded religious activities such as baptism, marriage ceremonies, and burials, family reconstitution alone can generate data about population flows (such as total number of births, deaths and marriages in a specified period), but not population stocks. Furthermore, information about migration such as moves into (except through marriage) and out of the parish cannot be obtained from parish registers or family reconstitution. Demographic results revealed by family reconstitution could, therefore, be affected by selection biases if people who moved away from the parish behaved differently from those who did not. This possibility should be examined whenever such inquiries could be conducted.
4.2. Inverse Projection, Back Projection, and Generalised Inverse Projection
In addition to providing opportunities for reconstructing demographic history for millions of recorded individuals through family reconstitution, parish registers generate large amounts of aggregated demographic data such as total numbers of recorded births (or baptisms) and deaths (or burials) in a population or an area. How these summary data might be used in the study of population history of a region or country was another major challenge that faced researchers in the early years of the development of historical demography.
A breakthrough was achieved when R. Lee developed the method of inverse projection in the early 1970s and used it to estimate detailed fertility and mortality rates for historical English populations. Lee’s method is based on assumptions about age-specific mortality and fertility schedules and migration, and requires information about population size and age distribution at a given time in the study period. It can then use a sequence of births and deaths recorded over time to derive sequences of vital rates and age distributions of the population at any time or time interval over this period. The method uses a technique that is similar to population projection but in an inverse form. Here, the inversion is not temporal but logical, in the sense that the method differs from the conventional population projection where sequences of births, deaths and age distributions are derived from a given sequence of vital rates and a starting population. Theoretically, the method of inverse projection ‘can be used either forward or backward in time’ (Lee 1974: 495).
On the basis of the inverse projection, J. Oeppen developed the method of back projection. This method uses totals of births and deaths recorded in a period and information about population size and age composition at the point in time as its input parameters. On the basis of ‘assumptions (or direct information) about certain other characteristics of the population, such as the age patterns of mortality and net migration’, it projects the population backward in time. The method of back projection can provide detailed demographic estimates such as population size and age distribution, crude birth and death rates, gross and net reproduction rates, expectation of life at birth, and other useful information at any time interval considered appropriate, or specified, by the researcher (Wrigley et al. 1997: 7). The method was used by Wrigley and Schofield in their study, The Population History of England 1541-1871, to produce detailed demographic data for historical English population over a period of more than three centuries.
While back projection was regarded as an important technical breakthrough in historical demography, it was open to a number of criticisms, however (Lee 1985 and 2004). Partly as a response to these criticisms, J. Oeppen improved his early method and developed it to a wider class of models that he termed ‘Generalized Inverse Projection’ (GIP), within which both back projection and inverse projection can be defined. According to Oeppen, General Inverse Projection ‘provides a flexible framework for the consistent integration of data and a priori information to produce constrained demographic projections. The basic structure can be applied to problems in population reconstruction, interpolation, and data correction’. Oeppen’s refined method allows researchers to estimate a series of mortality and migration parameters ‘that correspond to the period for which totals of births and deaths are available, and, simultaneously, a series of population age structures that are consistent with the data and the parameters’ (Oeppen 1993: 245-246). In addition to Generalized Inverse Projection, other related techniques such as Differentiated Inverse Projection and Stochastic Inverse Projection have also been developed on the basis of the Inverse Projection pioneered by Lee. These methods have been used to study long-term demographic patterns, their changes over time, and the relationship between those changes and economic development. Detailed information about these developments can be found in D. Reher and R. S. Schofield (1993) and E. Barbi, S. Bertino and E. Sonnino (2004).
4.3. Computer Simulation
Computer simulation is a technique in which researchers use computers to mimic ‘reality’, conduct ‘experiments’, and examine the impact of given events in which they are interested. The technique is increasingly used to study questions that are too difficult, or not possible, for conventional methods to handle. Computer simulation is neither new nor does it belong to population studies alone, but it has played an important part in advancing historical demography, as evident in the development and use of two computer micro-simulation systems: SOCSIM and CAMSIM.
As mentioned earlier, when, in the early 1960s, P. Laslett made his important discoveries about household composition in historical England, it became necessary to test the validity of these research findings and to establish that the high proportion of simple family households recorded in English history was indeed a result of people’s residential propensity. To do this, K. Wachter, E. Hammel, P. Laslett and other researchers developed a sophisticated computer simulation system SOCSIM. Their simulation investigations of household formation in past times led to the publication of a landmark work, Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure (Wachter, Hammel and Laslett 1978). Following this initial success, J. Smith and J. Oeppen developed another computer simulation system CAMSIM (Smith 1987; Smith and Oeppen 1993).
SOCSIM and CAMSIM share a number of similarities. Both of them are computer micro-simulation systems in which all demographic events are simulated at the level of individuals rather than at the level of population or sub-population groups as in a macro-simulation. The two systems are capable of addressing both the central tendency in people’s demographic behavior and outcomes, and their intra-population variability. Both SOCSIM and CAMSIM are ‘stochastic’ and execute all demographic events randomly according to the probabilities that govern the occurrence of those events. This allows researchers to examine not only the deterministic aspect of the demographic process, but also the impact of chance. Both simulation systems were initially designed for the historical investigation of kinship structure and household composition, and have been used widely in historical demography, studies of changing kinship structure in contemporary and future populations, and investigations of other theoretical and methodological issues. In spite of their similarities, however, SOCSIM and CAMSIM differ notably in their system designs, major assumptions and simulated outcomes. These technical details, which are crucial for using the systems and interpreting their results, are discussed in a number of publications (Hammel, Mason and Wachter 1990; Smith 1987; Smith and Oeppen 1993).
Computer demographic simulation differs from empirical research by nature. In simulation studies, a model population is generated by the computer. Changes in the population and their implications are simulated under the demographic conditions determined by input demographic parameters. These conditions can be manipulated according to the research design. Computer simulation can handle complicated demographic processes, and the simulation can be conducted repeatedly under the same or different conditions. This is very useful in measuring the impact of chance and in identifying the influence of major factors being studied. Because of these characteristics and its effectiveness in examining complex issues, computer simulation has become an important aid for historical demographers. The two systems mentioned above have been used in a large number of studies (Zhao 2006). In addition to SOCSIM and CAMSIM, other demographic simulation systems (for example MOMSIM) have also been developed and applied in historical demography (Ruggles 1987). Their use has made important contributions to our understanding of population and social history in recent decades. It is important, however, to note that in the real world observed population changes or other social phenomena are affected by many interrelated factors. In contrast, computer demographic simulation takes into account only the factors that have been specified in the simulation system. Accordingly, simulation results tell us about the implications of the theory and assumptions that are embedded, both explicitly and implicitly, in the process of simulation, not about what has actually happened in a real world. Simulation results differ from, and should not be mistaken for, reality.
4.4. Coale’s Fertility Indices and Other Methodological Developments
The European Fertility Project discussed in section two also made considerable methodological contributions to the development of historical demography and population studies. This project was designed to exploit the wealth of information contained in summary demographic data gathered from some six hundred European provinces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to compare fertility patterns across regions and over time. To achieve this, Ansley Coale (1917-2002) developed a set of fertility indices (If, Ig, Ih, and Im). If, Ig and Ih indicate relative levels of general fertility, marital fertility and non-marital fertility; Im indicates the proportion of married. Using these indices, researchers involved in the project successfully showed how observed general, marital and non-marital fertility levels differed from ‘a clearly defined maximum fertility’ as indicated by fertility rates among the Hutterites, and the extent to which the general fertility was affected by the levels of marital and non-marital fertility, and by patterns of marriage in all European populations included in the study (Coale 1986: 162).
Methodological developments have also been made in other research areas such as record linkage, the analysis of household composition, the evaluation and correction of historical data, and the use of genealogical records and other less common historical materials. Some of these techniques and methods are relatively easy to understand and have been widely used (for example, methods used in studying household composition), while others are still in the early stages of development, or tend to be data source specific and have only limited use. Therefore, discussion about the development of these techniques and methods is not presented here.
5. Concluding Remarks: Historical Demography at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
This chapter provides an introduction to the history of historical demography, its principal data sources, and major methodological developments made in recent decades. The discussion has concentrated on conventionally defined historical demography – the application of demographic techniques to historical data. Some topics have not been discussed though they are also related to population history. One such topic is paleodemography, the study of demographic characters of ancient populations. The other is qualitative historical demography promoted by D. Kertzer and others (Kertzer 1997). While these research areas are important for our understanding of people’s demographic behaviours in past times, their underlying causes, and implications, they have not been discussed in this chapter because the methods, evidence and information used in paleodemography and qualitative historical demography differ considerably from those used in conventional historical demography.
Historical demography has made impressive progress since it was established as a research discipline half a century ago. Scholars have assembled a vast quantity of surviving population records, from which they have derived valuable demographic information through the use of family reconstitution or other ingeniously developed methods. These efforts have generated considerable insights into demographic behaviour, population changes, and their interaction with socio-economic development in the last few centuries, which have provided crucial empirical evidence for major demographic theories. Methodological developments made in historical demography have also greatly advanced population studies. Whilst remarkable achievements have been made in historical demography in Europe, North America and East Asia, much remains to be done in other parts of the world.
In the light of these achievements, it is clear that more effort should be made to promote historical demography as a means of advancing understanding of modern demographic problems, especially in the areas where such studies are still rare. One of the most important findings of historical demography is the great diversity in demographic behaviours and in demographic responses to emerging changes in social, economic or environmental conditions. Although detailed historical demographic investigations have been conducted in limited numbers of populations, they reveal significant variations in patterns of marriage, levels of fertility, and ways of controlling family size. Knowledge of pre-transition societies has had significant implications on the development and interpretation of population theory. Many current demographic theories, models and methods have been developed based on demographic experiences of limited countries, especially developed countries. While these theories play an important role in guiding demographic research and these models and methods proved to be useful in population studies undertaken in other areas, there is a risk that some of these theories, models or methods may not be applicable to demographic reality of these populations. This is a problem that has to be addressed if we want to gain a better understanding of world population issues. If for no other reason, this concern alone justifies the importance of further promoting historical demography in the world.
Further effort should be made to improve the use of historical data and to promote research collaboration. More attention should be given to the linkage and use of records from different sources, for example, linking parish registers and vital registration data to census records, jointly using household registers and genealogical data, and jointly using demographic and non-demographic data. Operations of this kind provide opportunities for researchers to identify registration problems in different data sets, to overcome the limitations of the data of a particular type, and to examine the questions that could not be studied using records from a single source. Another important step in advancing historical demography is to further promote research collaboration between historical demographers from different countries and collaboration among scholars from disciplines. This is particularly helpful in countries where historical demography is in the early stages of development and major investigations into population history often call for multi-disciplinary effort.
Conditions for advancing historical demography have been greatly improved over the last few decades. We have gained much experience in using historical data for demographic research. Increasing amounts of surviving historical data have been collected, catalogued and made in computer readable forms. Researchers no longer need to spend extensive resources on gathering and inputting records. Many studies can now be conducted on a scale that could hardly be imagined a couple of decades ago. Increasing computing power and the development of many techniques and analytical tools make historical demography a less challenging task than ever before. In this favourable environment, the early twenty-first century is expected to see a further boom in historical demography in the world.
Glossary
Historical demography – the application of demographic techniques to historical population data.
Demographic transition – the historical shift of fertility and mortality from both high to both low. The term also refers to the model describing this change.
Natural fertility – the level of fertility that would prevail if couples do not alter their reproductive behaviour according to the number of children already born.
Parity progression ratio – the progression of women who already have n children go on to have at least another child.
Parish registers – registers of baptisms, marriages and burials made by Christian churches in many European countries.
Genealogies – records recounting one’s descent from an ancestor or ancestors by enumeration of the intermediate persons.
Family reconstitution – a method linking together separately-recorded vital events in order to reconstitute the demographic history of individuals and their families.
Computer demographic simulation – the technique of using a computer program to model and study demographic processes and their outcomes.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Richard Smith, Tommy Bengtsson, and Mac Boot for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
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Laslett P. (1966). The World We Have Lost, 380 pp. London: Methuen. [An influential book on English social history]
Laslett P. (1966). The Study of Social Structure from Listings of Inhabitants. An introduction to English historical demography from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century (ed. E. A. Wrigley), 160-208. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [An early investigation of social structure in historical England]
Laslett P. and Wall R. (1972). Household and Family in Past Time, 623 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [An influential book on historical study of households and families]
Lee J. and Campbell C. (1997). Fate and Fortune in Rural China Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning 1774-1873, 280 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [A book examining population history in northeast China]
Lee J. and Wang F. (1999). One Quarter of Humanity. 248 pp. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. [A study summarizing major findings in Chinese historical demography and challenging Malthusian view on population growth in Chinese history]
Lee R. (1974). Estimating Series of Vital Rates and Age Structures from Baptisms and Burials: A New Technique, with Application to Pre-industrial England. Population Studies 28: 495-512. [An influential paper discussing the method of inverse projection]
Lee R. (1985). Inverse Projection and Back Projection: A Critical Appraisal, and Comparative Results for England, 1539-1871. Population Studies 39: 233-248. [A critical review of The Population History of England 1541-1871 and the method of back projection]
Lee R. (2004). Reflections on Inverse Projections: Its Origins, Development, Extensions, and Relation to Forecasting. Inverse Projection Technique: Old and New Approaches (eds. E. Barbi, S. Bertino and E. Sonnino), 1-9. New York: Springer. [A brief introduction to the development of inverse projection techniques]
Levine D. (2003). Family Reconstitution. Encyclopedia of Population (eds. P. Demeny and G. McNicoll), 374-376. New York: MacMillan Reference. [An encyclopedia article on family reconstitution]
Liao T. F. (2001). Were Past Chinese Families Complex? Household Structures during the Tang Dynasty 618-907 AD. Continuity and Change 16: 331-355. [A study of household composition using surviving population registers found in Dunhuang]
Liu T. (1992). Lineage Population and Socio-economic Changes in the Ming-Ch’ing Periods. 320 pp. Taipei: ACADEMIA SINICA. [A major study of China’s lineage population history]
Oeppen J. (1993). Back Projection and Inverse Projection: Members of a Wider Class of Constrained Projection Models. Population Studies 47: 245-267. [A paper discussing the details of the method of Generalised Inverse Projection]
Pressat R. and Wilson C. (1985). The Dictionary of Demography, 243 pp. Oxford: Balckwell Reference. [A widely used demography dictionary]
Reher D. and Schofield R. (eds). (1993). Old and New Methods in Historical Demography, 426 pp. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [A collection of papers discussing methodological development made in historical demography]
Rosental P. (2003). The Novelty of an Old Genre: Louis Henry and the Founding of Historical Demography. Population 58: 97-129. [A detailed discussion on the early development of historical demography in France]
Ruggles S. (1987). Prolonged Connections: The Rise of Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America, 282 pp. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. [A simulation study examining changes in household composition in England and America]
Saito O. (1990). The Change Structure of Urban Employment and Its Effects on Migration Patterns in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Japan. Urbanization in history: A Process of Dynamic Interactions? (eds. Ad van der Woude et al.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. [A study examining migration in historical Japan]
Saito O. (1996). Historical Demography: Achievements and Prospects. Population Studies 50: 537-553. [A review article on historical demography]
Smith J. (1987). The Computer Simulation of Kin Sets and Kin Counts. Family Demography: Methods and their Applications (eds. J. Bongaarts et al.), 249-266. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [An introduction to CAMSIM computer micro-simulation system]
Smith J. and Oeppen J. (1993). Estimating Numbers of Kin in Historical England Using Demographic Microsimulation. Old and New Methods in Historical Demography (eds. D. Reher and R. Schofield), 280-317. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [A further introduction to CAMSIM simulation system and its use in the study of changing kinship structure in England]
Smith R. (2003). Historical Demography. Encyclopedia of Population (eds. P. Demeny and G. McNicoll), 484-490. New York: MacMillan Reference. [An encyclopedia article on historical demography]
Telford T. (1986). Survey of Social Demographic Data in Chinese Genealogies. Later Imperial China 7(2): 118-148. [A useful review of Chinese genealogies]
Telford Ted. (1990). Patching the Holes in Chinese Genealogies: Mortality in the Lineage Populations of Tongcheng County, 1300-1880. Later Imperial China 11(2): 116-137. [A study examining under-registration errors in Chinese genealogical data]
Tsuya N. O. and Kurosu S. (2004). Mortality and Household in Two Ou Villages, 1761-1870. Life under Pressure Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700-1900 (T. Bengtsson, C. Campbell and J. Lee), 253-292. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. [A study of mortality and household in historical Japan]
Van de Walle E. (2005). Historical Demography. Handbook of Population (eds. D. L. Poston and M. Micklin), 577-600. New York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. [A review article on historical demography]
Wachter K., Hammel E. A. and Laslett P. (1978). Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure, 229 pp. New York: Academic Press. [A pioneering work in using computer micro-simulation in the study of historical social structure]
Watkins S. C. (1986). Conclusions. The Decline of Fertility in Europe, (eds. A. J. Coale and S. C. Watkins) 420-449. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. [A paper reporting the major findings of the European Fertility Project]
Willigan J. D. and Lynch K. A. (1982). Sources and Methods of Historical Demography, 505 pp. New York: Academic Press. [A major book on historical demography]
Wrigley E. A. (1966a). Family Limitation in Pre-industrial England. Economic History Review 19: 82-109. [An early influential family reconstitution study conducted in England]
Wrigley E. A. (1966b). Family Reconstitution. An introduction to English historical demography from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century (ed. E. A. Wrigley), 96-159. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [A detailed introduction to family reconstitution]
Wrigley E. A. (1981). Population History in the 1980s. Journal of Interdisciplinary History XII (2): 207-226. [A review article on the study of population history in the 1980s]
Wrigley E. A. and Schofield R. S. (1981). The Population History of England 1541-1871, A Reconstruction, 830 pp. London: Edward Arnold. [An influential work on English population history, based on back projection]
Wrigley E. A. et al. (1997). English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837, 657 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Another important work on English population history, based on family reconstitution]
Zhao Z. (1994). Demographic Conditions and Multi-generational Households in Chinese History. Results from Genealogical Research and Microsimulation. Population Studies 48: 413-425. [A study comparing of potential co-residential patterns indicated by genealogical records and simulation results]
Zhao Z. (1997). Deliberate Birth Control under a High-fertility Regime: Reproductive Behaviour in China before 1970. Population and Development Review 23: 729-767. [An examination of fertility behaviour before China’s nationwide family planning campaign]
Zhao Z. (2001). Chinese Genealogies as a Source for Demographic Research: A Further Assessment of Their Reliabilities and Biases. Population Studies 55: 181-193. [A simulation study examining potential biases in genealogical records]
Zhao Z. (2006). Computer Microsimulation and Historical Study of Social Structure: A Comparative Review of SOCSIM and CAMSIM. Revista de Demografia Historica, XXIV, Vol. 2: 59-88. [A comparitive review of the two simulation systems SOCSIM and CAMSIM]
Biographical Sketch
Zhongwei Zhao is Professor at the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University. He studied at Peking University, University of Exeter, and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Prior to taking up the present appointment, he was a senior research associate at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure and a Bye-Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, a research fellow, fellow, and senior fellow at the Demography Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Zhongwei Zhao has been doing research in the following areas: simulating changes in kinship structure and household composition, fertility behaviour in historical and contemporary China, using genealogies for demographic research, changes in kinship networks in Victorian England, and examining the Far Eastern mortality model and the United Nations 1982 model life tables. At present, his major research activities concentrate on investigating health transition and mortality changes in East Asia. He has published many articles in world leading demography and social history journals.
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