Seasonality of birth rates in agricultural Iceland

The seasonal pattern of birth rates in nineteenth-century agricultural Iceland, peaking in late summer and early autumn, gradually disappeared when the population migrated to fishing villages in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century. We descr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scandinavian Economic History Review
Main Authors: Björnsson, D.F., Zoega, Gylfi
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Taylor and Francis 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/19404/
https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/19404/1/19404.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1080/03585522.2017.1340333
Description
Summary:The seasonal pattern of birth rates in nineteenth-century agricultural Iceland, peaking in late summer and early autumn, gradually disappeared when the population migrated to fishing villages in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century. We describe how this pattern is consistent with changes that have occurred in other countries and discuss some possible causes.