Family size and intergenerational social mobility during the fertility transition: Evidence of resource dilution from the city of Antwerp in nineteenth century Belgium

It has been argued in sociology, economics, and evolutionary anthropology that family size limitation enhances the intergenerational upward mobility chances in modernized societies. If parents have a large flock, family resources get diluted and intergenerational mobility is bound to head downwards. Yet, the empirical record supporting this resource dilution hypothesis is limited. This article investigates the empirical association between family size limitation and intergenerational mobility in an urban, late nineteenth century population in Western Europe. It uses life course data from the Belgian city of Antwerp between 1846 and 1920. Findings are consistent with the resource dilution hypothesis: after controlling for confounding factors, people with many children were more likely to end up in the lower classes. Yet, family size limitation was effective as a defensive rather than an offensive strategy: it prevented the next generation from going down rather than helping them to climb up the social ladder. Also, family size appears to have been particularly relevant for the middle classes. Implications for demographic transition theory are discussed. 1 Interface Demography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Centre for Sociological Research, KULeuven. E-mail: [email protected]. 3 Department of Sociology, Ghent University. E-mail: [email protected]. 4 Centre for Sociological Research, KULeuven. E-mail: [email protected]. Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility http://www.demographic-research.org 314 1. Resource dilution and fertility decline In his 1890 classic Dépopulation et civilisation, the French social scientist Arsène Dumont argued that adults with ambition tend to limit their family size because numerous offspring are an obstacle to success and achievement. For people who want to rise socially, he wrote, many children make inconvenient luggage (Dumont 1890(1990):77). The same holds for those who project their ambitions onto their children: numerous offspring dilute parental resources and therefore complicates or aggravates the social situation in the next generation (Dumont 1890(1990):73-91). Philippe Ariès (1980), referring to Dumont, argued in an article amply cited by demographers (Dalla Zuanna 2007) that the decline of fertility in the West is the consequence of the emergence of a child-oriented society. In such a society, parents’ main investment consists of helping their children to get ahead. In the English-speaking world, Joseph A. Banks’ Prosperity and Parenthood (1954) was instrumental in spreading the same ideas. Banks, who explicitly referred to Dumont's work, argued that social ambition was one of the motivating forces for family size limitation in the English middle classes. In economics, the negative effect of family size on the future social status of children, due to resource dilution, is known under the heading of the quality-quantity trade-off (Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005; Maralani 2008). Becker (1991) calls proper consideration of the interaction between child quantity and quality “probably the major contribution of the economic analysis of fertility” (Becker 1991:135). Becker’s economic theory implies that a reduction in the number of children raises investments in child quality, where quality is measured by the current as well as the future wellbeing of children, including their income when they become adults. In a nutshell, the resource dilution hypothesis states that parental resources are finite and that additional children dilute the amount of time, money, and patience that each child receives from its parents. As a consequence of reduced parental investment per child, the opportunities to move up the social ladder, for example, through higher education are reduced (Downey 1995; Desai 1995; Maralani 2008). Historically, resource dilution is argued to have motivated fertility limitation as inheritance systems became more egalitarian and as education became more important in securing a good social position in terms of wealth and prestige (Van Bavel 2006; Dalla Zuanna 2007). Despite its longstanding record in social and demographic theory, there is little direct empirical evidence backing the relevance of the resource dilution hypothesis for the historical fertility decline in Europe (Downey 1995; Haaga 2001; Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005; Dalla Zuanna 2007). One reason may be that it is very hard to tell selection effects from truly causal effects: do families with more children have observed or unobserved characteristics that would lower their social position, regardless of family Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 http://www.demographic-research.org 315 size? Or is there really a causal effect, such that a family with given characteristics would climb the social ladder if it would have had fewer children (Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005)? Research in contemporary, modernized countries has consistently confirmed that the number of siblings is negatively associated with a range of desirable outcomes, including educational and occupational attainment. The association is persistent, also after controlling for potentially confounding variables (Kasarda and Billy 1985; Blake 1989; Downey 1995; see Steelman et al. 2002 for a comprehensive overview), although a recent study casts doubt on whether the association can be considered truly causal in the sense predicted by the resource dilution hypothesis (Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2005). The evidence from studies about developing countries is much more mixed. The negative association between family size and child outcomes has been found to be much weaker, absent, or even positive there (Desai 1995; Steelman et al. 2002; Maralani 2008). Overall, the available body of evidence about countries around the world today suggests that the relationship between family size and children's social mobility changes as a society develops (Desai 1995; Maralani 2008). Yet, drawing conclusions about historical change from comparing rich and poor, rural and urban, or southern versus northern countries observed today represents a typical case in point of "reading history sideways" (Thornton 2005). Given, on the one hand, the very prominent role of the resource dilution hypothesis in theories about the historical fertility decline in Europe and, on the other hand, the very scant empirical evidence supporting it, the aim of this article is to investigate whether the size of the family of orientation was indeed associated with the upward or downward mobility chances of adult children in a historical population undergoing the demographic transition during the nineteenth century. More specifically, we replicate the study by Van Bavel (2006), carried out in the small, middle class town of Leuven in Belgium, in a different context. The context for this study is the rapidly urbanizing, big city of Antwerp in the nineteenth century. Were children with fewer brothers and sisters more likely to climb higher on the social ladder than were children who had more siblings? Were sons and daughters originating from large families more likely to loose social status as compared to their parents? We go beyond the analysis of Van Bavel (2006) by also addressing the role of gender and migration. Indeed, investigating differences by gender may reveal different strategies. For sons, a limited family size may result in better career prospects. For daughters, a limited family size may result in better chances to attract a suitable marriage partner. Also geographical origin may play a role. Migrants and non-migrants may be expected to hold different attitudes towards family limitation and their position in the local labour market is likely to be different as well. Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility http://www.demographic-research.org 316 2. Context: the city of Antwerp During the 19th century, this important port city experienced major demographic and economic transformations. From about 55 thousand inhabitants at the start of the 19th century, Antwerp grew fast to more than 88 thousand inhabitants around 1850. In the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, it surpassed the Belgian capital city of Brussels and grew to be the biggest city of Belgium, with about 273 thousand inhabitants by the end of the 19th century. The annual average growth-rate rose from 0.7% in 1801-1810 to 3.2% in 1881-1890. Population growth was heavily influenced by migration, spurred by growing activity in the harbour. At the start of the nineteenth century, about 22% of the population was born outside Antwerp. This proportion increased to 43% by the end of the nineteenth century (Kruithof 1964:511-512; Vrielinck 2000: 1668-1669; Winter 2009). Economically, things changed dramatically already during the first half of the 19th century. Due to a shortage of investments, the textile production, which had been one of Antwerp's main industries, imploded. By 1850, employment in this sector completely collapsed. On the other hand, harbour activities grew strongly as Antwerp evolved from an inland to an international port. Both external and internal factors were responsible for an impressive expansion of international activities. The liberalization of the trading climate and the competition of neighbouring ports, together with the continuing industrialisation of Belgium, the rapid transformation in the Ruhr and the Rhineland (Germany) and the invasion of the European market by cheap foreign grain stimulated the development of port activities externally. Moreover, local initiatives were also undertaken to stimulate the industrial and commercial activities in Antwerp. The expansion of port activities, coupled with strong population growth, created a favourable climate for the establishment of industry (Jeuninckx 1964; Veraghtert 1986:359-393). While these economic developments brought more employment opportunities, they had some downsides for the urban population, too: the employment structure was much less regular and dock work was physically very demanding. Thousands of immigrants came to Antwerp because of the new employment possibilities but they were often confronted with bad housing and sanitary conditions, and many faced integration problems (Asaert 2007; Lampo 2002; Lis 1969; Van Houtven 2008). Moreover, the more than one million European migrants who emigrated via Antwerp with the ‘Red Star Line’ to the United States also strengthened these problems during the last decennia of the 19th century (Vervoort 2005:81-90). Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 http://www.demographic-research.org 317 3. Data: the COR* sample We use a new demographic database called COR*, covering the population of the city of Antwerp between 1846 and 1920. The two main sources used to construct the COR*database are the population registers and the vital registration records (birth, marriage, and death certificates) (Matthijs and Moreels 2010). The Belgian population registers are a high quality source that enables us to follow individuals, and their offspring, over time. From 1846 onwards, all Belgian municipalities were obliged to keep up a population register. This register is a repository of demographic and social information about all official inhabitants of the municipality, stored per dwelling. For each dwelling, all changes were recorded, such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces as well as moves within the municipality and external migration (Gutmann and van de Walle 1978; Leboutte and Obotela 1988; Van Baelen 2007). The COR* database has been composed by letter sampling: following the TRA*sample in France (Dupâquier and Kessler 1992), all persons whose family name starts with a particular letter combination are selected in the sample. The letter combination that is the basis of this sample, namely COR*, satisfies a number of conditions: a good geographical distribution over the Flemish territory, socio-demographic representativeness, and language sensitiveness (especially with regard to foreign people) (Van Baelen 2007:5-15; Matthijs and Moreels 2010). For the present analyses, we selected men and women (called index or reference persons) from the COR* database who were born between 1830 and 1900 and who were ever recorded to live in the city of Antwerp between 1846 and 1920. We look at intergenerational mobility by comparing male occupations in two generations, so the occupation of the father of the index persons has to be known in order to be included in the analysis. For men, we use their own occupational titles as recorded in their marriage act or in the population register. If different occupations were recorded at different occasions (for example at census, marriage, or immigration date), we selected the occupation recorded on the occasion of the first marriage, if applicable and available, or the occupation recorded closest to age 25 otherwise. By applying these criteria, we obtained 749 pairs of observations of occupations for both father and son. Yet, in 82 of these cases, the son’s occupation was recorded when he was at most 13 years old and no occupation was recorded at a later date. We consider these child occupations to contain insufficient information about their own social status of destination and, therefore, removed them from the analysis. This leaves 667 father-son pairs of occupations available for analysis. For female index persons, we use the occupation of their first marriage partners, if applicable and available. As a consequence, only women who married during the study Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility http://www.demographic-research.org 318 period are included in the analysis. This amounts to 211 father – son-in-law pairs available for analysis. In sum, there are 878 pairs of occupations to be analyzed: 667 father-son plus 211 father-son-in-law pairs. There are 523 different fathers involved. The regression analysis will apply random effects multilevel modelling in order to deal with the nested structure of the data. Our selection of cases implies that we need to take into account at least three potential sources of selection bias. The first follows from the fact that we need to know the occupation of the fathers of the index persons. As a result, sons who migrated to Antwerp without their fathers had to be excluded from the analysis. It is not unlikely that young men who migrated without their families of origin were also more mobile on the social ladder. Yet, we cannot tell a priori that they would be more likely to climb rather than descend, given the very high heterogeneity of migration to Antwerp (Winter 2009). But we can expect that we underestimate to an unknown extent the degree of social mobility, upwards or downwards, or both. To the extent that this is correlated with the number of siblings in the family of origin, this will bias our estimates of its effect. The second source of potential selection bias is our exclusion of 82 cases of fatherson pairs for which no occupation of the son was recorded past age 13. One obvious reason for not registering an occupation is unemployment, for illness or other reasons. This would imply that we underestimate downward mobility. Apart from unemployment, it can be argued that the higher the socio-economic status attached to an occupation, the more likely that it will be recorded in the population registers. If that is true, sons with a low social status will be more likely to be excluded from the sample, again implying an underestimation of downward mobility. Again, to the extent that this is correlated with the number of brothers and sisters, it will bias our results. The third issue relates to female index persons: they are included in the analysis only if they got married. Assuming that women who are more attractive on the marriage market will be moving up the social ladder more often than relatively unattractive women (for whatever reason), we may expect that women who never got married will be more often going down the social ladder. Our results for female index persons should therefore be interpreted conditionally, i.e., they hold only for the selective group of ever marrying women. Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 http://www.demographic-research.org 319 4. Measuring social status: the SOCPO classification In order to classify individuals in a social hierarchy based on occupational information, we use the SOCPO classification scheme. SOCPO represents a hierarchy of social power (hence the acronym) and was designed to complement the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO, van Leeuwen, Maas and Miles 2002). We use the concepts of social class and social status interchangeably: social classes, as defined within the logic of the SOCPO classification, are assumed to imply a particular status within the social stratification system. The SOCPO classification scheme assumes that social status is a derivative of social power. Social power is defined as the potential to influence one’s destiny or life chances through control of scarce resources. SOCPO distinguishes between economic and cultural sources of social power. Economic power is based on material resources of power, such as property. Cultural power is based on nonmaterial power sources, such as reputation, style, and standing. Both sources of power are partly related but they do not overlap completely (Van de Putte and Miles 2005). SOCPO distinguishes between five dimensions underlying economic and cultural power: 1. property; 2. hierarchical position, i.e., the command position one has in an organizational structure (e.g.. 'manager', 'foreman'); 3. skill; 4. whether a person’s work comprises predominantly manual or non-manual tasks; 5. pure status, i.e., a title that refers to basically ascribed qualities (such as 'knight') and does not directly refer to skill, property or hierarchical position; in historical sources these titles are often used as an alternative for an occupation. An important principle of the scheme is that these five dimensions are each in their own way contributing to the amount of social power (Van de Putte and Miles 2005). The result is a scheme with five Social Power Levels. These levels are labelled 'elite' (SOCPO 5), 'middle class' (SOCPO 4), 'skilled workers' (SOCPO 3), 'semiskilled workers' (SOCPO 2) and 'unskilled workers' (SOCPO 1). Table 1 presents the basic dimensions of the SOCPO-scheme. Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility http://www.demographic-research.org 320 Table 1: The SOCPO-scheme, basic dimensions, categorisation and merging SOCPO-level Property Hierarchical position Skill and manual/ non-manual Pure status SOCPO 5 Elite Macroscaled self employed High commanders Nonmanual super skilled Nobility SOCPO 4 Middle class Medium-scaled self employed Medium commanders Nonmanual skilled, manual super-skilled SOCPO 3 Skilled Low commanders Manual skilled SOCPO 2 Semi-skilled Microscaled self employed Semiskilled SOCPO 1 Unskilled Unskilled First, the occupations mentioned in the Antwerp data have been coded into the HISCO classification, using the guidelines involved in that coding scheme (van Leeuwen, Maas and Miles 2002). Next, standardized recoding algorithms were used to reclassify HISCO-codes into the SOCPO-levels. In Antwerp, the unskilled occupational group consists mainly of day labourers and dockworkers (SOCPO 1, see Table 1). Semiskilled working class occupations (SOCPO 2) include soldiers as well as apprentices of traditional arts and crafts like forging, tailoring, and painting. Skilled occupations within the working classes (SOCPO 3) include mainly the traditional arts like the ones just mentioned. In addition, and typical of Antwerp, it also includes many apprentice diamond polishers; they are counted as skilled (and not semiskilled) because of the exceptional skill level involved. Middle class occupations (SOCPO 4) include white collar clerks and other office employees, next to experienced diamond polishers, and captains of ships and barges. Among the elite (SOCPO 5), we find professionals, engineers, merchants, and industrialists. The upper panels of Tables 2 and 3 are the contingency tables for the pairs of father-son SOCPO-codes and for the pairs of father-son-in-law codes, respectively. For both tables, the hypothesis of statistical independence can safely be rejected (with χ2= 140.5 and χ2= 49.4, respectively, df=16 and p<0.001 in both cases). Note, however, that this is not really a fair statistical test since many fathers feature several times in it, i.e., once for every son and for every married daughter. The nested structure of the data will be dealt with in the multilevel regression analysis. The lower panels of tables 2 and 3 report standardized residuals in order to get a first idea of the pattern of association. Standardized residuals behave like z-scores and are calculated as the difference between the observed frequency and the frequency Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 http://www.demographic-research.org 321 expected under independence, divided by the standard error of that difference (Agresti and Finlay 2009:229-231). Positive values indicate higher frequencies than expected under independence, negative values indicate lower than expected frequencies. Hence, values lower than -2 indicate a statistically significant negative association between the categories involved, values higher than +2 indicate a significantly positive association. Statistically significant residuals are put in bold. Table 2: Contingency table for occupations of fathers and sons, city of Antwerp, 1846-1920 Observed frequencies Occupational status Occupational status of son of father 1. Unskilled 2. Semiskilled 3. Skilled 4. Middle class 5. Elite Total 1. Unskilled 108 39 26 30 2 205 2. Semiskilled 36 47 26 32 2 143 3. Skilled 14 38 29 36 4 121 4. Middle class 32 31 34 81 5 183 5. Elite 5 0 1 6 3 15 Total 195 155 116 185 16 667 Standardized residuals Occupational status Occupational status of son of father 1. Unskilled 2. Semiskilled 3. Skilled 4. Middle class 5. Elite 1. Unskilled 8.87 -1.72 -2.14 -5.03 -1.60 2. Semiskilled -1.20 3.08 0.28 -1.61 -0.88 3. Skilled -4.72 2.35 2.11 0.55 0.72 4. Middle class -4.10 -2.37 0.50 5.86 0.35 5. Elite 0.35 -2.16 -1.11 1.07 4.51 Inspection of the residuals for the father-son-table reveals that the unskilled are the most immobile group: sons of unskilled working class fathers are very likely to end up staying in the same social class as they were born into. Second in terms of intergenerational immobility are the elite and the middle class (with standardized residuals estimated at 4.51 and 5.86, respectively). There is significant positive association between the semiskilled and the skilled working classes, and significant negative association between the middle classes and the semiskilled and unskilled working classes. Associations with the elite, either in the paternal generation or in the Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility http://www.demographic-research.org 322 sons’, are mostly not significant due to low frequencies. Therefore, nothing much can be said about this group in particular, except that there clearly is a tendency for intergenerational immobility. Table 3: Contingency table for occupations of fathers and sons-in-law, city of Antwerp, 1846-1920 Observed frequencies Occupational status Occupational status of son-in-law of father 1. Unskilled 2. Semiskilled 3. Skilled 4. Middle class 5. Elite Total 1. Unskilled 28 20 14 4 0 66 2. Semiskilled 15 8 11 21 1 56 3. Skilled 11 4 4 12 0 31 4. Middle class 7 7 8 33 2 57 5. Elite 0 0 0 1 0 1 Total 61 39 37 71 3 211 Standardized residuals Occupational status Occupational status of son-in-law of father 1. Unskilled 2. Semiskilled 3. Skilled 4. Middle class 5. Elite 1. Unskilled 2.92 2.98 0.95 -5.72 -1.18 2. Semiskilled -0.41 -0.94 0.48 0.71 0.27 3. Skilled 0.87 -0.87 -0.73 0.65 -0.72 4. Middle class -3.24 -1.41 -0.81 4.53 1.56 5. Elite -0.64 -0.48 -0.46 1.41 -0.12 In the contingency table for the status of fathers and their sons-in-law (Table 3), due to low frequencies, most associations between occupational groups are not statistically significant. Yet, an interesting exception is the significantly positive association between unskilled fathers and semiskilled sons-in-law. There is no equivalent positive association in the father-son table, which suggests that it was easier for daughters from the lowest social class to marry somewhat up into the (semi)skilled labouring classes than it was for sons from the same social class to reach the same occupational position themselves. Given the small number of observations in many of the cells, especially in the highest social status group (SOCPO=5), and generally for the pairs of fathers and sonsDemographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 http://www.demographic-research.org 323 in-law, we decided to merge some of the occupational groups. First, the elite were merged with the middle class to represent the “high” social status group. The working classes, blue collar or not (SOCPO 1 to 3), were grouped based on the criterion of whether the occupation mentioned implies any trained skill (SOCPO 2 and 3) or not (SOCPO 1). On these grounds, the merging was done as follows: • elite + middle class (SOCPO 4 and 5): called “middle class;” • skilled + semiskilled (SOCPO 2 and 3): called “skilled working class;” • unskilled group (SOCPO 1): called “unskilled working class.” We now jointly analyze the social status destinies of sons and daughters, measuring the social status of sons by their own occupations, and the social status of daughters by the occupations held by their first marriage partners. 5. Descriptive results and confounding factors 5.1 Sibsize and social class Following Blake (1989), a person’s sibsize is defined as his or her number of siblings. Sibsize evolves over time: it increases when new brothers or sisters are born and decreases when some of them die. In all subsequent analyses, we have measured sibsize at age 20. Only full brothers and sisters have been counted, i.e., only people sharing the same biological mother and father were considered as siblings. Another limitation is that we could only count brothers and sisters who had at some point in time been registered in the Antwerp civil registration system. As a result, we may underestimate the sibsize of people whose parents did not stay in Antwerp during their complete reproductive lives. In order to account for this, we constructed a dummy variable indicating whether or not the mother of the index person remained continually registered in Antwerp between ages 15 and 49. If this was not the case, the reported sibsize may be lower than it actually was. Therefore, we enter the dummy variable in the regression analyses to see how it affects our results. Bivariate descriptive statistics do suggest that the social status destinies of sons and daughters from Antwerp fathers were related to their sibsizes (see Figure 1). For example, the more siblings a man or woman had, the less likely he or she would end up in the middle class (as measured by own occupation for sons or by the husband’s occupation for daughters): 36% of those with at most two brothers and sisters had a middle class destination, as compared to 34% of those with three to five siblings and only 22% of those with more than five siblings. The relation between sibsize and the other social status destinations is more erratic. Still, whereas between 25-28% of people Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility with at most five siblings ended up in the unskilled working classes, this amounted to more than 36% of those with more than five siblings. Figure 1: Distribution of children’s social status destination by number of siblings, City of Antwerp, generations born between 1830 and 1920 Yet, the suggested negative relationship between sibsize and social status destination may be spurious if birth control would first have been practiced, or practiced more intensely, in the middle and higher classes and only later in the working classes. This is what in fact happened in many parts of Europe (Skirbekk 2008), including Belgium (Van Bavel 2010). As a result, while socio-economic status tended to be positively related with family size before the nineteenth century (Clark and Hamilton 2006; Skirbekk 2008), this relationship turned around in the nineteenth century, with lower status groups exhibiting higher fertility than higher status groups. Therefore, the relationship suggested in Figure 1 may reflect what is in fact inheritance of social class: middle class fathers may have been more likely to limit their offspring, resulting in their http://www.demographic-research.org 324 Demographic Research: Volume 24, Article 14 sons and daughters having smaller sibsizes, while at the same time being more likely to attain a middle class status, not because of the sibsize but due to status inheritance through other mechanisms. In order to check whether the relationship between sibsize and the social status destination of children still holds after controlling for their social status of origin, Figure 2 gives the relevant distributions by social status of the father. It appears that sibsize is still negatively associated with children’s own social status after controlling for their social status background. The figure does suggest, however, that the association may hold only for the skilled working and middle classes, not for the unskilled working classes. Children from the skilled working and middle classes were more likely to achieve a middle class position if they had fewer brothers and sisters. Conversely, children from large middle class families were more likely to go down to the unskilled working class. There is no such clear pattern for children from unskilled fathers. Figure 2: Distribution of children’s social status destination by social status of the father and by number of siblings, City of Antwerp, generations born between 1830 and 1920 http://www.demographic-research.org 325 Van Bavel et al.: Family size and social mobility