Demographic and economic growth during three centuries. Longitudinal micro-level data for 1800-2007 from Sweden and Taiwan.
In our project we examine how changing economic circumstances may influence different demographic outcomes. A central question in demography is the degree to which marriage, fertility and mortality is influenced by economic cycles. The issue was first brought to public attention by Robert Malthus in the late 1700s, and was again high-lighted in Swedish discourse by Alva Myrdal during the 1930s. Economic cycles have ever since served as common explanations for subsequent variations in Swedish fertility trends.
We study these issues over an extended period of time (1800-2012) based on data from parish and population registers from Sweden and Taiwan, one society in the West and one in the East. We aim at studying how different aspects of economic circumstances during agricultural societies, the industrialization, the great depression, and the economic cycles during the post-war era have interacted with demographic change.
We use different aggregate measures of economic circumstances to study how short-term economic fluctuations, such as those related to historical harvest crises and the economic crisis of the 1930s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s, have affected individual-level demographic outcomes. Our comparison between Sweden and Taiwan provides the opportunity to study how these relationships has changed not only over time and development level, but also across two very different family regimes.
Final report
The project goal was to examine how economic conditions affect demographic outcomes. The main demographic outcomes have been childbearing, marriage and mortality. The project focused above all on the relationship between childbearing and economic conditions. The project used both historical and contemporary data, using linked registers, and data from both Sweden and Taiwan.
The project was carried out largely as planned between 2018 and 2020, with a disposition time until 2021. During 2020 to 2021, project manager Kolk became involved in immediately urgent Covid-19 research, and the project thus received an extended disposition time until 2022. Only Kolk has been employed in the project. The project has resulted in a very large number of scientific articles related to the project's questions. Kolk has published a total of 34 articles between 2018-2022, where about half relate to the project, 6-8 relate to the project to a very high degree.
The result has both resulted in an overview theoretical article published in the Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics, with a focus on "population theory", which is the central question of the proposal. As well as in a theoretical article about high-income countries and developing countries (with Taiwan and Sweden as examples) published in the Journal of Development Studies. Kolk organized the data work in a well-cited article on childbearing and economic cycles in the Nordics (Comoli et. al. 2021). A comparative article on Sweden and Taiwan marriage patterns with a 200-year perspective on economic changes has been published in History of the Family.
Kolk has also developed a large number of articles on the relationship between income and childbearing at the individual level, which directly relate to the causal mechanisms discussed in the project. An important article on accumulated income and childbearing published in Population Studies has received a great deal of international and Swedish attention (including on the inside of DN), and is part of a larger reorientation of research between income and childbearing,. The article shows that the association in several contexts is positive, in contrast to much social science research that assumes a negative connection. Overall, a large number of articles have attracted great international attention, and Kolk has given a large number of interviews in leading Swedish and international journals about the project (e.g. in Vetenskapsradion, Forskning och Framsteg, DN, SvD).
The main result of the project is that there is a positive relationship between childbearing and income, both historically and in today's Sweden. This has been confirmed both in a number of demographic empirical studies, as well as explored theoretically. The same conditions seem to apply to marriages as well. To a lesser extent, the project has investigated the relationship between mortality and economic cycles.
The project has also given rise to new questions about social mobility (2 different projects funded by the Swedish Research Council), as well as research on climate and childbearing. The research has also contributed to Kolk's increased knowledge of historical censuses, which contributed to the work on an ESO report for the Ministry of Finance. Kolk has also written a report for Kinacentrum (under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on China's demography.
The interruption in the project, which resulted in an extension in time, was due, among other things, to Kolk organizing and writing a report on excess mortality in Sweden in Covid-19 for the public health authority.
The project was carried out largely as planned between 2018 and 2020, with a disposition time until 2021. During 2020 to 2021, project manager Kolk became involved in immediately urgent Covid-19 research, and the project thus received an extended disposition time until 2022. Only Kolk has been employed in the project. The project has resulted in a very large number of scientific articles related to the project's questions. Kolk has published a total of 34 articles between 2018-2022, where about half relate to the project, 6-8 relate to the project to a very high degree.
The result has both resulted in an overview theoretical article published in the Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics, with a focus on "population theory", which is the central question of the proposal. As well as in a theoretical article about high-income countries and developing countries (with Taiwan and Sweden as examples) published in the Journal of Development Studies. Kolk organized the data work in a well-cited article on childbearing and economic cycles in the Nordics (Comoli et. al. 2021). A comparative article on Sweden and Taiwan marriage patterns with a 200-year perspective on economic changes has been published in History of the Family.
Kolk has also developed a large number of articles on the relationship between income and childbearing at the individual level, which directly relate to the causal mechanisms discussed in the project. An important article on accumulated income and childbearing published in Population Studies has received a great deal of international and Swedish attention (including on the inside of DN), and is part of a larger reorientation of research between income and childbearing,. The article shows that the association in several contexts is positive, in contrast to much social science research that assumes a negative connection. Overall, a large number of articles have attracted great international attention, and Kolk has given a large number of interviews in leading Swedish and international journals about the project (e.g. in Vetenskapsradion, Forskning och Framsteg, DN, SvD).
The main result of the project is that there is a positive relationship between childbearing and income, both historically and in today's Sweden. This has been confirmed both in a number of demographic empirical studies, as well as explored theoretically. The same conditions seem to apply to marriages as well. To a lesser extent, the project has investigated the relationship between mortality and economic cycles.
The project has also given rise to new questions about social mobility (2 different projects funded by the Swedish Research Council), as well as research on climate and childbearing. The research has also contributed to Kolk's increased knowledge of historical censuses, which contributed to the work on an ESO report for the Ministry of Finance. Kolk has also written a report for Kinacentrum (under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on China's demography.
The interruption in the project, which resulted in an extension in time, was due, among other things, to Kolk organizing and writing a report on excess mortality in Sweden in Covid-19 for the public health authority.