Overview

France was among the first countries to experience so-called 'demographic transition', when mortality and fertility declined and daily living conditions were deeply transformed. But the exact position traditionally assigned to France in the European fertility decline will have to be revised in the light of this study, which introduces new approaches and methods to the study of historical demography based on data for the eighty-nine departments of France during the nineteenth-century. Professor Bonneuil reconstitutes the patterns of internal migration, which, intertwined with the extension of urbanization and education, played an important role in the transition. The French demographic landscape does, indeed, reveal geographical contrasts in evolution. The question is whether people changed their habits by adapting to a changing economic, sanitary, and social environment, or, alternatively, whether behaviour was influenced primarily by changes in the perception of the role of offspring. Historical data from France offer an exceptional analytical opportunity. The results of this study transcend geographical and historical borders and challenge our assumptions about the demographic response to changing environment.

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9780198233404

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