Replication files for Fertility and mortality responses to short-term economic stress: Evidence from two Hungarian sample populations, 1819-1914

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Péter Őri, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute; Levente Pakot, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute

Version:  View help for Version V1

Version Title:  View help for Version Title 1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  code 02/26/2025 11:11:AM
  data 02/26/2025 11:09:AM
  output 02/26/2025 11:12:AM
.here application/octet-stream 02/26/2025 05:29:AM
renv.lock text/plain 39.6 KB 02/26/2025 05:29:AM
replication_readme.pdf application/pdf 211.9 KB 02/26/2025 05:29:AM
required_packages.R text/x-rsrc 415 bytes 02/26/2025 05:29:AM
runproject.R text/x-rsrc 1.1 KB 02/26/2025 06:16:AM

Project Citation: 

Ori, Péter, and Pakot, Levente. Replication files for Fertility and mortality responses to short-term economic stress: Evidence from two Hungarian sample populations, 1819-1914. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-02-26. https://doi.org/10.3886/E220881V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Demographic response to short-term price fluctuations can be interpreted as an indicator of living standards in pre-modern societies. In this paper, we demonstrate how childbearing and infant and child mortality responded to changes in rye prices in two nineteenth-century Hungarian sub-regions. We conducted a micro-level demographic analysis based on family reconstitution data and multivariate statistical methods (event history analysis). Our findings reveal that both childbearing and child mortality differed between the two regions, and that both were affected by short-term economic fluctuations, but that the responses depended strongly on local economic, demographic and socio-cultural conditions. Child mortality responded markedly to rising rye prices, but in our Central Hungarian study population with high fertility and high infant and child mortality, this response was stronger than in our West Hungarian study population with more modest child mortality and fertility. At the same time, the mortality response to changing prices increased over time in both populations as a result of local industrialization in the latter and modernization of the surrounding region in the former. An immediate and presumably deliberate fertility response of the landless to rising food prices was more characteristic of the Western study population before 1870 while it was not observed in the Central population. Our results, therefore, emphasize the similarities with evidence from other European or Asian communities, and – at the same time – the importance of local context in explaining our findings.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms [Hungary's population history; , economic crisis; , infant and child mortality; , fertility; , living standard; , event history analysis; ]
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage Hungary
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1819 – 1914
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data; aggregate data

Methodology

Data Source:  View help for Data Source parish and state registers
Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit Bük, Szakony, Gyalóka, Zsámbék, Tök

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V1 [2025-02-26]

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