How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods
This paper reconsiders one of historical demography’s most pertinent research problems: the fiddly concept of historical household formation systems. Using a massive repository of historical census micro-data from the North Atlantic Population Project and the Mosaic project, the four markers of Hajn...
Published in: | Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History |
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Online Access: | https://zenodo.org/record/3695389 https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 |
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ftzenodo:oai:zenodo.org:3695389 2023-05-15T17:33:43+02:00 How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods Szołtysek Mikołaj Ogórek Bartosz 2019-09-26 https://zenodo.org/record/3695389 https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 unknown https://zenodo.org/record/3695389 https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 oai:zenodo.org:3695389 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53(1) 53-76 info:eu-repo/semantics/article publication-article 2019 ftzenodo https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 2023-03-10T23:50:05Z This paper reconsiders one of historical demography’s most pertinent research problems: the fiddly concept of historical household formation systems. Using a massive repository of historical census micro-data from the North Atlantic Population Project and the Mosaic project, the four markers of Hajnal’s household formation rules were operationalized for 256 regional rural populations from Catalonia in the west to central Siberia in the east, between 1700 and 1926. We then analyze these data using the Partitioning Around Medoids algorithm in order to empirically derive the “natural groups” based on the similarity and the dissimilarity of their household formation traits. Although regional differences between European household formation systems are readily identifiable, the two statistically most valid clustering solutions (k¼2; k¼4) provide a more complex picture of household formation regimes than Hajnal and his followers have been able to compile. Our finding that when regional populations cluster on similar household formation characteristics, they often come from both sides of Hajnal’s “imaginary line,” calls into question strict bipolar divisions of the continent. By and large, we show that the long-lived idea of two household formation systems in preindustrial Europe obscures considerable variability in historical family behavior, and therefore needs to be amended. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Siberia Zenodo Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53 1 53 76 |
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This paper reconsiders one of historical demography’s most pertinent research problems: the fiddly concept of historical household formation systems. Using a massive repository of historical census micro-data from the North Atlantic Population Project and the Mosaic project, the four markers of Hajnal’s household formation rules were operationalized for 256 regional rural populations from Catalonia in the west to central Siberia in the east, between 1700 and 1926. We then analyze these data using the Partitioning Around Medoids algorithm in order to empirically derive the “natural groups” based on the similarity and the dissimilarity of their household formation traits. Although regional differences between European household formation systems are readily identifiable, the two statistically most valid clustering solutions (k¼2; k¼4) provide a more complex picture of household formation regimes than Hajnal and his followers have been able to compile. Our finding that when regional populations cluster on similar household formation characteristics, they often come from both sides of Hajnal’s “imaginary line,” calls into question strict bipolar divisions of the continent. By and large, we show that the long-lived idea of two household formation systems in preindustrial Europe obscures considerable variability in historical family behavior, and therefore needs to be amended. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Szołtysek Mikołaj Ogórek Bartosz |
spellingShingle |
Szołtysek Mikołaj Ogórek Bartosz How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
author_facet |
Szołtysek Mikołaj Ogórek Bartosz |
author_sort |
Szołtysek Mikołaj |
title |
How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
title_short |
How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
title_full |
How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
title_fullStr |
How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
title_full_unstemmed |
How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods |
title_sort |
how many household formation systems were there in historic europe? a view across 256 regions using partitioning clustering methods |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://zenodo.org/record/3695389 https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 |
genre |
North Atlantic Siberia |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic Siberia |
op_source |
Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53(1) 53-76 |
op_relation |
https://zenodo.org/record/3695389 https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 oai:zenodo.org:3695389 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2019.1656591 |
container_title |
Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History |
container_volume |
53 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
53 |
op_container_end_page |
76 |
_version_ |
1766132304681369600 |