Early Fertility and Mortality Change in Europe

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This project will complete analysis of one of the largest known family reconstitution data sets from Croatia, in historical Europe. It will develop and test new statistical methods for dealing with incomplete data to improve the efficiency of data recovery. It will confirm fertility control responses to fluctuating economic and political conditions and demonstrate early onset of fertility decline (CA. 1780) as a response to progressive inmiseration of the population. It will show that demographic response is conditioned primarily by economic and social organizational factors rather than broad cultural factors. This research is important because it expands and improves the theory of the demographic transition from large to small families. Understanding how this has happened in the past will help us design programs to impact family size in the future.