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Historical Development of the Household in Europe

  • Chapter
Household Demography and Household Modeling

Abstract

In this chapter the attempts of John Hajnal and Peter Laslett to conceptualize the family and household systems of Europe as they existed in the past are reviewed and then extended on the basis of the following criteria: the welfare capability of the family, the household as a work unit, the status of women within the family, the patterns of marriage and household formation, the household as a kin group, and inequalities between households. National and local censuses are then analysed to reveal the extent of the variation in household and family forms that prevailed across much of Europe in the past, a diversity that, when measured at the national or regional level, appears to have lessened in recent years, without entirely vanishing. Finally, the process of change in the composition of households in England between the seventeenth century and the present day is examined in detail, and causes for those changes are suggested. It is argued that economic factors largely account for the decline between pre-industrial times in the frequency of co-residence with non-relatives (principally servants), and the decline between 1891 and 1981 in the frequency of living with relatives in the absence of a spouse and child. There is also evidence that membership of a family group, comprising a couple or a parent and child, was more common in 1981 than in either 1891 or before 1800. The differences, however, are not large, leading to the conclusion that in England there has been a considerable degree of continuity between past and present in the frequency with which individuals reside in family groups.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 27 Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QA, England

    Richard Wall

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  1. Richard Wall
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), The Hague, The Netherlands

    Evert van Imhoff  & Leo van Wissen  & 

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Anton Kuijsten

  3. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Pieter Hooimeijer

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Wall, R. (1995). Historical Development of the Household in Europe. In: van Imhoff, E., Kuijsten, A., Hooimeijer, P., van Wissen, L. (eds) Household Demography and Household Modeling. The Plenum Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5424-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5424-7_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-3251-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5424-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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