A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Social Change 759

such as clerks and salespeople, became available, and service employment
drew migrants to cities. Increased factory production altered the physical
structure of industrial cities, which were characterized by greater social
segregation within their limits. Working-class suburbs grew rapidly on the
outskirts of towns. Overseas emigration, particularly to the Americas, rose
rapidly and did not slow down even with the end of the economic depres­
sion in the mid-1890s.

Demographic Boom

Europe’s population grew rapidly because the continent passed from the

traditional pattern of high birthrates and high death rates to low rates

of both births and deaths. Mortality rates fell during the second half of the

nineteenth century, particularly among children. Births outnumbered

deaths, despite the fact that fertility rates fell beginning in the 1860s, or

even before. Infant mortality declined, particularly in Western and Central

Europe, because of greater medical understanding of chest and stomach

infections, as well as a general improvement in the standard of living.

Many poor people now lived in warmer, drier accommodations, although

improvements still lagged behind in large, dirty, industrial cities.

With infant mortality greatly reduced, more couples sought to control

the number of children they had (see Table 19.4). Although Britain’s

Queen Victoria had nine children, poor families often had more children

than upper-class couples, who limited themselves to two or three offspring

because they wanted to devote more resources to the education and inher­

itance of each child. In France, officials and nationalists worried about

their country’s unique plunging birthrate. The French population grew by

only about 15 percent from mid-century until 1914. The division of farm­

land into small plots may be a partial explanation—another child ulti­

mately meant a further subdivision of land because France no longer had

primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest son).

Contraception became more widespread, although the methods were very

traditional ones. Coitus interruptus was the most common method, although

Table 19.4. The Decline in Family Size (Number of Children) in

England and Wales

Year Family Size

1861-1869 6.16

1871 5.94

1876 5.62

1890-1899 4.13

1900-1909 3.30

1910-1914 2.82

Source: E. A. Wrigley, Populationand History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p. 197.