Full Citation

Title: Historical family systems and lasting developmental trajectories in Europe: the power of the family?

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2019

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: Last years have witnessed a growing interest in economics and cross-cultural studies in the role of the historical family as the instigator of disparate developmental trajectories. This new emerging literature has already provoked a considerable amount of controversy, involving debates on the precise underlying mechanisms, the role of non-familial institutions and the possibility of reversed causality, as well as the quality of historical data. Using novel historical database of European family this paper reaffirms the hypothesis that historical family organization could be one of the intermediate factors associated with developmental and value disparities among European nations today pointed out in earlier scholarship. We show that countries starting out from more patriarchal family structures in the past exhibit more hierarchical gender relations, more collectivist mindsets, and lower levels of economic and human development in the present. These findings suggest that the criticism of the family role in comparative development may be premature, and that links between historical family organisation and developmental gradients merit further attention.

Url: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ad7qr/

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Szołtysek, Mikołaj; Poniat, Radosław

Publisher: University of Warsaw

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Family and Marriage, Work, Family, and Time

Countries: