Population and Living Standards in Asia and Europe, 1700-1900. an Overview of the Findings of the the Eurasian Population and Family History Project.

Tommy Bengtsson, Lund University
Cameron Campbell, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
James Z. Lee, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Feng Wang, University of California, Irvine and Fudan University, China
Martin Dribe, Lund University
Christer Lundh, University of Gothenburg
George Alter, University of Michigan
Muriel Neven, University of Liege
Michel Oris, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (csic)
Marco Breschi, Università degli Studi di Sassari
Matteo Manfredini, University of Parma

The Eurasia Project on Population and Family History (EAP) contributes to the debate about the emergence of the gap in living standards between the East and the West by presenting comparisons of wealth, mortality, fertility and nuptiality for populations in in two Asian and three European countries based on primary data. For eighteenth and nineteenth century populations in northern China, eastern Japan, northern Italy, eastern Belgium and southern Sweden we have digitized register type individual level economic and demographic data. The fact that we have register type data means that we have data on the entire population and not only for groups who lived their entire life in the same area. It also means that we know population at risk. We also have access to local data on food prices. This allows us to analyse behaviour and well-being for different social strata and by position in the family under changing economic circumstances. We focus on responses to changes in food prices and to other household shocks such as the death of a parent. We use differences in the ability to overcome such short-term economic stress to measure differences in living standards and well-being within populations. Our approach makes full use of individual demographic data as well as household and community economic data to study well-being for men and women of all ages and in all socio-economic groups; for labourers, farmers, middle-class and well-off groups, and also for nuclear and complex households as well as for central and peripheral members of the household. Co-authors: Cameron Campbell, James Lee, Wang Feng, Martin Dribe, Christer Lundh, George Alter, Muriel Neven, Michel Oris, Marco Breschi, Matteo Manfredini, Rosella Retaroli, Satomi Kurosu and Noriko O. Tsuya

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 5. EAP and beyond