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Published July 30, 2018 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Historical family systems and contemporary developmental outcomes: what is to be gained from the historical census microdata revolution?

  • 1. University of Warsaw
  • 2. University of Białystok

Description

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the role of the
historical family as the instigator of disparate developmental trajectories.
However, a major challenge faced by these studies was
that they had to work around a lack of reliable historical data. This
study demonstrates how embarking on the recent outburst of
historical microdata infrastructures may help to improve these
explorations by suggesting additional statistics and a derived
measure (the Patriarchy Index) that might prove useful in future
efforts aimed at assessing the effect of historical family organization
on comparative development. The added value of that endeavour
is assessed by comparing the predictive validity of the PI for
contemporary developmental gradients against a composite indicator
of family organization previously used by economic historians
(Carmichael’s ‘Female Friendliness Index’). The results indicate
that conclusions about the relationship between historical family
organization and various societal outcomes may be sensitive to
the measure used. Based on the evidence presented in this paper,
it is argued that one of the reasons why the potential importance
of historical family for contemporary developmental disparities has
not been convincingly unravelled could be inadequacy of data and
indicators so far employed to assess historical family formations.
To the extent that the Patriarchy Index would be taken up by
wider scholarly circles as an indicator of historical family organization
it could help unravel potentially new associations between
past and present, at least as far as Europe is concerned.

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