Availability of kin and the demography of historical family structure.

Abstract

The author "proposes a strategy for estimating the influence of demographic factors on the frequency of extended families and applies this strategy to the demographic experience of the West during the past two centuries." A simulation model previously developed by the author is used to estimate the availability of kin under certain demographic conditions and to calculate residential propensities. A standard propensities approach to analyzing the interaction of demography and family structure is described. The geographic focus is on the United States and England. The author concludes that "the demographic conditions prevailing since the end of the nineteenth century have been highly favorable to the formation of extended families. By contrast the frequency of available extended kin was substantially lower in pre-industrial England. We may be fairly confident that demographic change was a necessary condition for the rise of the extended family in the nineteenth century." (EXCERPT)