Medical evidence related to english population changes in the eighteenth century

Abstract

In a recent communication¹ Professor Habakkuk has raised doubts about the acceptability of the traditional view which attributes the increase in the population of England during the eighteenth century to a fall in the death rate. He is unable to accept Griffith's² suggestion that medical measures introduced during that century had a substantial effect on the death rate, and considers the statistical evidence that mortality declined unreliable. These conclusions led Habakkuk to re-examine the possibility that an increase in the birth rate was the more important cause of the rise in population, and he suggests that “the acceleration of population growth in the late eighteenth century was to a very large extent the result of a high birth rate, and that in turn was the result of the economic developments”.³ His reason for preferring this interpretation is not merely that the traditional view is unacceptable; he is also impressed by evidence of the significance of the birth rate in the growth of population in certain pre-industrial societies (such as eighteenth century France and colonial America), as well as by opinions expressed by eighteenth century writers about the effect of economic conditions, in particular the demand for labour, on the birth rate.