Volume 39 - Article 4 | Pages 95–135  

Leaving home in 19th century England and Wales: A spatial analysis

By Joseph Day

Abstract

Background: The process and timing of leaving home represents a major demographic transition which has an impact on other demographic events such as migration and marriage.

Objective: This paper aims to accurately measure the leaving home process across England and Wales in 1881 at a high spatial resolution and to analyse the determinants of regional disparities in the leaving home process. The paper is designed to shift the focus away from the household- and individual-level determinants of leaving home and to the relationship with the socioeconomic context.

Methods: This paper uses data from the complete individual-level returns from the 1881 census of England and Wales. Using standard demographic techniques to adjust for parental mortality, a spatial framework is used to analyse the relationship between the leaving home process and the socioeconomic context. Moran’s global and local i is used to identify spatially-determined variables such that their effect on the age at leaving home can be evaluated in an OLS model.

Results: The leaving home process exhibits a clear spatial pattern related to the institution of service. Poor households responded to hardship by either retaining or ejecting children from the home depending on the prevalence of service.

Contribution: This article adds to the literature on the leaving home process by mapping variations in the mean age at leaving home across England and Wales in 1881 rather than relying on small region-specific samples. Through the comprehensive use of the census, this process can be linked to the socioeconomic context, thereby explicating households’ varying responses to poverty in 19th century England and Wales.

Author’s Affiliation

• Joseph Day - University of Cambridge, United Kingdom EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Household living arrangements and disparities in hardship
Volume 52 - Article 20    | Keywords: hardship, household living arrangements, household types, income, poverty, sociodemographic characteristics, wealth

Infant mortality among US whites in the 19th century: New evidence from childhood sex ratios
Volume 52 - Article 10    | Keywords: 19th century, economic development, infant mortality, mortality transition, population health, sex ratio

Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Volume 51 - Article 36    | Keywords: birth order, cohort analysis, cross-national study, England, family size, fertility, Northern Ireland, parity, Scotland, Wales

Solo living in the process of transitioning to adulthood in Europe: The role of socioeconomic background
Volume 48 - Article 3    | Keywords: cross-national comparison, Europe, leaving home, life course, living alone, trajectories, transition to adulthood

Spatial heterogeneity in son preference across India’s 640 districts: An application of small-area estimation
Volume 47 - Article 26    | Keywords: census, India, model-based small-area estimation, National Family Health Surveys (NFHS), son preference