Evidence of fertility regulation among rural French villagers, 1749-1789: a sequential econometric model of birth-spacing behavior (Part 2).

This is the second part of a two-part paper in which the authors examine statistical models of marital fertility regulation in rural France from 1749 to 1789. They create a case against the "natural fertility" characterization of the period by presenting "clear indications that marital fertility was being regulated in congruence with the differential valuations placed upon children, according to their gender and age. A complex pattern is found in the non-biological responses of couples' fertility to both non-familial and familial experience of infant deaths, which take the form of 'hoarding' and 'replacement effects', respectively. Evidence is present bearing upon the suspected endogeneity of infant deaths, and its relationship to the adoption of preventive methods of limiting family size." (SUMMARY IN FRE) excerpt