Fertility thread of the day: How did railroads impact fertility in 19th century Europe? Contrary to what you might expect from the conventional industrialization => demographic transition relationship, the answer seems to be: more railroads (by market access), higher fertility.
The proximate mechanism is a familiar one: areas with a larger increase in railroads railroads saw an increase in marriage, with more marriages at younger ages. This is the same proximate mechanism behind the Baby Boom.
This is driven by incomes. The higher fertility associated with more railroads is driven entirely by areas (1) above median income in 1900 and (2) below median female labor force participation. These places had already mostly transitioned from agriculture to industry/services.
The paper finds that a Europe in which market access had remained at the 1830 level would have had 8% lower fertility by WW1.
Increased incomes + low FLFP => a large male-female income gap. This is the same mechanism I postulate caused the Baby Boom (), albeit smaller in magnitude, and demonstrates that high living standards in and of themself do not destroy fertility.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-baby-boom
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