̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Alice Reid

Cambridge experts bust myths about family, sex, marriage and work in English history

ta385 — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 23:01:00 +0000

Sex before marriage was unusual in the past – Myth! In some periods, over half of all brides were already pregnant when they got married.

̽��ֱ��rich have always outlived the poor –Myth! Before the 20th century the evidence for a survival advantage of wealth is mixed. In England, babies of agricultural labourers (the poorest workers) had a better chance of reaching their first birthday than infants in wealthy families, and life expectancy was no higher for aristocrats than for the rest of the population. These patterns contrast strongly with national and international patterns today, where wealth confers a clear survival advantage everywhere and at all ages.

In the past people (particularly women) married in their teens – Myth! In reality, women married in their mid-20s, men around 2.5 years older. Apart from a few decades in the early 1800s, the only time since 1550 that the average age of first marriage for women fell below 24 was during the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

These are just some of the stubborn myths busted by researchers from ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop). Their Top of the CamPops blog (www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog) went live on 11 July 2024, with new posts being added every week. ̽��ֱ��blog will reveal ‘60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages’.

̽��ֱ��initiative marks the influential research group’s 60th anniversary. Founded in 1964 by Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley to conduct data-driven research into family and demographic history, Campop has contributed to hundreds of research articles and books, and made the history of England’s population the best understood in the world.

Earlier this year, the group made headlines when Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor revealed that the Industrial Revolution in Britain started 100 years earlier than traditionally assumed.

Professor Alice Reid, Director of Campop and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, said: “Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths. Over the last 60 years, our researchers have gone through huge amounts of data to set the record straight. This blog shares some of our most surprising and important discoveries for a broad audience.”

Myth: Until the 20th century, few people lived beyond the age of 40. Reality: Actually, people who survived the first year or two of life had a reasonable chance of living until 70.

Myth: Childbirth was really dangerous for women in the past, and carried a high chance of death. Reality: ̽��ֱ��risk of death during or following childbirth was certainly higher than it is now, but was far lower than many people suppose.

Myth: Families in the past generally lived in extended, multigenerational households. Reality: Young couples generally formed a new household on marriage, reducing the prevalence of multi-generational households. As today, the living circumstances of old people varied. Many continued to live as couples or on their own, some lived with their children, whilst very few lived in institutions.

Myth: Marital titles for women arose from men’s desire to distinguish available women from those who were already ‘owned’. Reality: Both ‘miss’ and ‘mrs’ are shortened forms of ‘mistress’, which was a status designation indicating a gentlewoman or employer. Mrs had no necessary connection to marriage until circa 1900 (and even then, there was an exception for upper servants).

Myth: Famine and starvation were common in the past. Reality: Not in England! Here, the poor laws and a ‘low pressure’ demographic system provided a safety net. This helps to explain why hunger and famine are absent from English fairy tales but common in the folklore of most European societies.

Myth: Women working (outside the home) is a late 20th century phenomenon. Reality: Most women in the past engaged in gainful employment, both before and after marriage

Myth: Women take their husbands’ surnames because of patriarchal norms. Reality: ̽��ֱ��practice of taking a husband’s surname developed in England from the peculiarly restrictive rule of ‘coverture’ in marital property. Elsewhere in Europe, where the husband managed the wife’s property but did not own it, women retained their birth names until circa 1900.

Myth: People rarely moved far from their place of birth in the past. Reality: Migration was actually quite common – a village population could change more than half its members from one decade to the next. Rural to urban migration enabled the growth of cities, and since people migrated almost exclusively to find work, the sex ratio of cities can indicate what kind of work was available.

Campop’s Professor Amy Erickson said: “People, not least politicians, often refer to history to nudge us to do something, or stop doing something. Not all of this history is accurate, and repeating myths about sex, marriage, family and work can be quite harmful. They can put unfair pressure on people, create guilt and raise false expectations, while also misrepresenting the lives of our ancestors.”

On World Population Day, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers bust some of the biggest myths about life in England since the Middle Ages, challenging assumptions about everything from sex before marriage to migration and the health/wealth gap.

Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths.

Alice Reid

Black and white photograph of a family lined up against a wall in E W Hope, Report on the physical welfare of mothers and children (Liverpool, ̽��ֱ��Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, 1917), volume 1

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Mind Over Chatter: ̽��ֱ��future of reproduction

ns480 — Thu, 27 May 2021 12:41:58 +0000

Season 2, episode 6

Our reproductive capabilities are changing in exciting ways, altering our fundamental understanding of fertility, reproduction, and even parenthood.

In this episode of Mind Over Chatter, we ask our guests what the consequences of novel reproductive technologies are likely to be, and how they will impact the future of human reproduction.

Subscribe to Mind Over Chatter

We cover topics ranging from egg-freezing, so-called ‘three-parent-babies, and the importance of studying the embryonic development of primates.

Historical demographer, Dr Alice Reid, who researches fertility, mortality and health in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tells us how reproduction has changed over the last 200 years and how it has been influenced by improvements in gender equality, as well as discussing the likely demographic impact of assisted reproduction.

Dr Lucy Van de Wiel, whose research focuses on the social and cultural analysis of assisted reproductive technologies such as egg freezing, introduces the important ways in which reproductive technologies must be considered in the context of wide social and political issues.

Finally, Dr Thorsten Boroviak shares his cutting-edge research on developing new reproductive technologies – the ability to generate your own egg or sperm from any cell of your body – and the importance of studying the embryonic development of primates.

Key points:

[2:10]- change of human reproduction over the last 200 years

[5:45]- egg freezing and changing meaning of what it means to be ‘fertile’

[12:05]- higher levels of gender equity can produce higher levels of fertility

[23:19]- generating eggs and sperms from any human cell

[24:02]- can a man produce an egg?

[40:37]- when should one freeze their eggs?

[64:54]- reproductive justice and reproductive equity. Ensuring reproductive autonomy while ensuring non-exploitation

[65:59]- Final question: what is the most exciting thing that will happen to humankind in the future?

Mind Over Chatter: ̽��ֱ��Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Podcast

Year 8 students work with Cambridge researchers to help their peers learn about the census

sc604 — Thu, 13 May 2021 14:33:38 +0000

Researchers from Cambridge’s Department of Geography and Year 8 students in Wales have worked together to produce a series of learning resources based on census data, showing how the country has changed over time.

̽��ֱ��materials, including worksheets and a series of podcasts, are freely available for teachers to incorporate into their lessons.

Year 8 students from Radyr Comprehensive School and Pontarddulais Comprehensive School in Cardiff worked with Dr Alice Reid and colleagues from Cambridge, Leicester and Edinburgh Universities, to co-produce a learning resource about exploring the census in the past and present. They explored the Populations Past and Data Shine websites to discover facts about their local area and compared them with other parts of England and Wales.

After exploring the websites, the students drew up a set of interview questions to ask experts on historical and recent censuses, including the former National Statistician, Dame Jil Matheson. These interviews were recorded as podcasts.

̽��ֱ��collaboration is part of the ‘Engaging the Public in Census 2021 project’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. This project teaches students about the relevance of the census and provides insight into being a data-driven social scientist.

“ ̽��ֱ��students were really responsive and thoughtful,” said Reid. “We had originally thought they would be most interested in their local areas, and while some of them were, they all seemed fascinated by the comparative aspects, both over time and between places, and they easily grasped the idea of letting the patterns in the data guide them to interesting questions which we could then explore with them.”

Students were particularly interested in what life was like for children their age in other eras. Today young people have to stay in full-time education until they are 18, but in the middle of the nineteenth century, school was not compulsory. ̽��ֱ��first Education Act in 1870 established local school boards which could build and manage schools, and the 1880 Education Act made school compulsory between the ages of 5 and 10 years. However, the continued need to pay fees until 1891 meant that not all children could afford to attend school. Children not at school may have been earning money or doing housework at home.

Imogen, one of the students who took part, said, “I find it interesting how children aren't allowed to work the same jobs now as kids did in 1861 and 1911. Did the government think that it was ok to let children work?”

Lewys, another student, said: “I find this information interesting because it shows a clear link between history and data, and how it affects people’s lives.”

One of the teachers involved in the project said: “An important part of the new curriculum in Wales is to embed the history of the local area into our study. It also combines History, Geography and RE as an all-around humanities subject. This project was the perfect combination of Geography and History and we will definitely be building the data into our curriculum in the future.”

“We were keen to work with Key Stage 3 students on this project in order to demonstrate the power and relevance of the social sciences,” said Reid. “ ̽��ֱ��process of creating the material in collaboration with students inspired us to interrogate and explore our data in different ways which we are planning to build into our research programme.”

“I think it was really important to work with students on the project to gain insight into what they found most interesting about the census and to develop learning resources that were student-centred and responded to their needs and interests,” said Sophy Arulanantham from the Department of Geography. “This will help inform our work with schools and the development of further resources in future.”

Initial findings from the 2021 Census, which took place in March, are expected in March 2022, with a final release due in March 2023.

Year 8 students work with Cambridge researchers to help their peers learn about the census.

I find this information interesting because it shows a clear link between history and data, and how it affects people’s lives

Lewys, Year 8 student

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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(When) are you going to have children?

jg533 — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 17:05:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��decision about if and when to have children can be one of the most significant many people will ever make. But – for those who have the choice – what influences come into play, and how have these changed over time?

Online atlas explores north-south divide in childbirth and child mortality during Victorian era

sc604 — Tue, 15 May 2018 07:36:56 +0000

̽��ֱ��Populations Past website is part of the Atlas of Victorian Fertility Decline research project based at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in collaboration with the ̽��ֱ�� of Essex. It displays various demographic and socio-economic measures calculated from census data gathered between 1851 and 1911, a period which saw immense social and economic change as the population of the UK more than doubled, from just under 18 million to over 36 million, and industrialisation and urbanisation both increased rapidly.

̽��ֱ��atlas allows users to select and view maps of a variety of measures including age structure, migration status, marriage, fertility, child mortality and household composition. Users can zoom in to an area on the map and compare side-by-side maps showing different years or measures.

̽��ֱ��maps reveal often stark regional divides. “Geography plays a major role in pretty much every indicator we looked at,” said Dr Alice Reid from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, who led the project. “In 1851, more than one in five children born in parts of Greater Manchester did not survive to their first birthday. In parts of Surrey and Sussex however, the infant mortality rate at the same time was less than a third that number.”

While there are broad north-south divides in most of the maps, patterns at a local level were more complicated: in the northern urban-industrial centres such as Manchester, infant and child mortality were high, while many rural areas of the north had mortality rates as low as rural areas of the south. And in London, there is a sharp east/west divide in fertility, infant mortality, the number of live-in servants, and many other variables.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found that different types of industry were often associated with different types of families: in coal mining areas where there was little available work for women, women married young and often ended up with large families. In contrast, women in the textile-producing areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire had more opportunities to earn a wage, and perhaps consequently, had fewer children on average.

There are also big differences over time. ̽��ֱ��period saw a sharp drop in the number of women who continued to work after marriage, for instance. In 1851, more than a third of married women were in work across large sections of the country, but by 1911, only a tiny fraction of married women worked outside the home, apart from the textile-producing areas of the Northwest.

“This might be associated with the rise of the culture of female domesticity: the idea that a woman’s place is in the home,” said Reid.

Across the Western world, fertility rates have declined over the past 150 years. Gaining a historical perspective of how and why these trends have developed can help improve understanding of the way in which modern societies are shaped.

Between 1851 and 1911, England and Wales changed from countries where there were variable fertility and mortality rates to countries where rates for both were low. Child mortality and fertility fell from the 1870s, together with a fall in illegitimacy, but infant mortality did not start to fall until the dawn of the twentieth century.

As part of the project on fertility decline, the researchers have investigated fertility in more detail. For the first time, they have been able to calculate age-specific fertility rates for more than 2000 sub-districts across England and Wales during this era, and their results challenge views on the way that fertility fell.

“It’s long been thought that the fall in fertility was achieved when couples decided how many children they wanted at the outset of their marriage, and stopped reproducing once they had reached that number,” said Reid. “While this may have happened in more recent fertility transitions, such as in South-East Asia and Latin America, when reliable contraception was widely available, it was not a realistic scenario in the Victorian era.”

“We don’t find age patterns of fertility which would be produced by this type of ‘stopping’ behaviour during the Victorian fertility decline,” said Reid’s collaborator Dr Eilidh Garrett from the ̽��ֱ�� of Essex. “Such behaviour would show up as a larger reduction of fertility among older women, but instead, women of all ages appear to have been reducing their fertility.”

As well as the interactive maps, the Populations Past site provides a variety of resources for researchers, teachers and students at all levels. ̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and the Isaac Newton Trust.

A new interactive online atlas, which illustrates when, where and possibly how fertility rates began to fall in England and Wales during the Victorian era has been made freely available from today.

In 1851, more than one in five children born in parts of Greater Manchester did not survive to their first birthday. In parts of Surrey and Sussex however, the infant mortality rate at the same time was less than a third that number.

Alice Reid

Populations Past

Early childhood mortality rates in 1851 (left) and 1911 (right). ̽��ֱ��highest rates are in red and the lowest in blue.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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