Michel Oris

The age at marriage of migrants during the industrial revolution in the region of liège

The articl7e examines the cities and towns in the Liège region during industrialization in the ninteenth century, focusing on the relationship between marriage, migration, and entry of people into urban areas. The average age at marriage was higher for in-migrants than for natives, but so was the intensity of nuptiality. Thus, the average age at marriage is not the sole statistic through which to approach questions about the socio-demographic consequences of arrival into town. Towns had several, seemingly closed, marriage markets, and it is important to pay attention to differential behaviors by taking this fact into account. Moreover, in-migration to an industrial city created opportunities to contract marriage, for women as well as men. Sometimes marriages occurred in the village, and were contracted to escape the old system and to prepare for the migration to the city of the young couple. Structural as well as life-course approaches must be combined for a thorough understanding of migration to industrializing cities.

The association of leisure activities in middle adulthood with cognitive performance in old age: the moderating role of educational level.

Background: One of the fundamental challenges for gerontological research is how to maintain and promote intact cognitive functioning in old age. Previous research revealed that high educational level, good health status, and an active lifestyle during adulthood seem to be protective against cognitive impairment in old age. However, up to now, a detailed examination of the interaction of these relations based on a broader variety of activities and considering past and current activities is missing. Objective: The present study set out to extend the literature by investigating in more detail the interactions of educational level and health status with a broad variety of past and current leisure activities in their association with cognitive functioning in a large sample of older adults with a wide age range. Methods: A total of 2,812 older adults (aged 65-101 years) served as the sample for the present study. A test on verbal abilities and one on processing speed were applied. In addition, individuals were retrospectively interviewed regarding their educational level, current general health status, and 18 leisure activities (in terms of currently performed activities and those that had been carried out at the age of 45 years). Results: Regressions indicated that engaging in more current activities and in more activities at the age of 45 years (both analyzed as an overall activity measure) was related to better cognitive performance in old age (r values up to 0.39, p values <0.001). These associations were more pronounced in individuals with a low (compared to a high) educational level. Conclusion: Present results suggest that an active lifestyle during middle adulthood may be related to better cognitive functioning in old age, particularly in individuals with a low educational level. These findings are discussed with respect to models of cognitive aging.

Effects of Inheritance and Environment on the Heights of Brothers in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

Shared genetic inheritance results in a high correlation in the heights of brothers, but experiences in childhood and adolescence can intervene. Poor diet, disease, and heavy labor can prevent the achievement of height potentials. If families cannot control variations in these conditions, the heights of brothers will be less strongly correlated. We use heights measured at military conscription examinations from three communities in nineteenth-century Belgium. The Generalized Estimating Equation procedure allows us to estimate effects of covariates on mean heights as well as the correlations within families. Both average height and the correlation of brothers’ heights differed by socioeconomic status. Members of the local elite were taller and the heights of brothers in those families were more strongly correlated. This suggests that elite families were much better able to control the environmental challenges faced by their offspring.

Life Course Data In Demography And Social Sciences: Statistical And Data-Mining Approaches ☆

This paper has essentially a methodological purpose. In a first section, we shortly explain why demographers have been relatively reluctant to implement the life course paradigm and methods, while the quantitative focus and the concepts of demographic analysis a priori favored such implementation. A real intellectual crisis has been needed before demographers integrated the necessity to face up the challenge of shifting “from structure to process, from macro to micro, from analysis to synthesis, from certainty to uncertainty” (Willekens, 1999, p. 26). This retrospective look also shows impressive progresses to promote a real interdisciplinarity in population studies, knotting the ties between demography and the social sciences. However, we also note that the success of multivariate causal analyses has been so rapid that some pitfalls are not always avoided. In Section 2, we focus on statistical methods for studying transitions. First, readers mind is refreshed about regression like models, and then we consider the issue of population heterogeneity. We show how it could affect results interpretation, and illustrate the interest of robust estimates and of the notion of shared frailty to deal with it. We also present Markovian modeling. Though less popular than regression event history models, Markovian models are specifically well suited for studying successive transitions between states observed at periodic time. In Sections 3, we promote some tools from the developing field of data mining, with special attention on the mining of frequent sequences and induction trees. These highly flexible heuristic tools can, among others, handle trajectories. Hence, they may prove very useful to face the deficit of knowledge on trajectories we observe between standard demographic analysis and causal research. 1 From demographic analysis to life course approach Although demographic analysis has a long history (see Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985), the methods still used today have essentially been elaborated between the mid nineteenth and the mid twentieth century in Western societies that felt successively threatened by race degeneration, declining birth rates and ageing. The macro frame was that of the demographic transition, i.e. the evolution from young populations with high 1 Gilbert Ritschard (gilbert.ritschard@themes.unige.ch) is at the Department of Econometrics and Michel Oris (michel.oris@histec.unige.ch) at the Department of Economic History. Both belong also to the Laboratory of Demography and Family Studies and have benefited, for this research, from an help of the Swiss National Science Foundation, projects 1114-68113 and 100012-105478.

The history of migration as a chapter in the history of the European rural family: An overview

For a long time, migration has been neglected both in population and family history. This article briefly explains this absence and shows how, for the past 20–25 years, the concepts of migration and family systems have been elaborated and partly linked. At present, most researchers probably agree that highly diverse configurations existed, such diversity being a consequence of the many factors acting and interacting to determine migration as a part of family and population dynamics. The concept of system, often used but rarely defined, and the notions of ecotypes and sociotypes are discussed in an attempt to go beyond confusion and particularity, to manage complexity, and to articulate macro- and microlevels. Several illustrations of systems observed in preindustrial Europe are also provided. Since the concept of system explicitly stresses continuity and long-term reproduction, the way rural societies have been able to cope with change in industrializing Europe through various compromises between resistance and adaptation is also examined.

Childhood conditions, migration, and mortality: Migrants and natives in 19th‐century cities

Abstract Migrants often have lower mortality than natives in spite of relatively unfavorable social and economic characteristics. Although migrants have a short‐run advantage due to the selective migration of healthy workers, persistent health and mortality differences between migrants and natives may be long‐run effects of different experiences in childhood. We made use of a natural experiment resulting from rural‐to‐urban migration in the mid‐19th century. Mortality was much higher in urban areas, especially in rapidly growing industrial cities. Migrants usually came from healthier rural origins as young adults. Data used in this study is available from 19th‐century Belgian population registers describing two sites: a rapidly growing industrial city and a small town that became an industrial suburb. We found evidence of three processes that lead to differences between the mortality of migrants and natives. First, recent migrants had lower mortality than natives, because they were self‐selected for good health when they arrived. This advantage decreased with time spent in the destination. Second, migrants from rural backgrounds had a disadvantage in epidemic years, because they had less experience with these diseases. Third, migrants from rural areas had lower mortality at older (but not younger) ages, even if they had migrated more than 10 years earlier. We interpret this as a long‐run consequence of less exposure to disease in childhood.

Toward a Life Course Framework for Studying Vulnerability

Interest in the study of vulnerability has experienced impressive growth across various disciplines. To contribute to this major but scattered development in the study of vulnerability, this article argues for a multidisciplinary life-course framework. This framework promotes a systemic and dynamic perspective focused on three complementary research directions: multidimensional, multilevel, and multidirectional. On the basis of this life course perspective, the authors also propose a definition of vulnerability as a dynamic process of stress and resources across various domains of life (i.e., work, family, health, migration, etc.), levels (i.e., person, group, collective), and time (i.e., long-term processes).

The association of educational attainment, cognitive level of job, and leisure activities during the course of adulthood with cognitive performance in old age: the role of openness to experience.

BACKGROUND The relevance of mental health for everyday life functioning and well-being is crucial. In this context, higher educational attainment, higher cognitive level of ones occupation, and more engaging in stimulating leisure activities have been found to be associated with better cognitive functioning in old age. Yet, the detailed pattern of the potential interplay of such a cognitively engaged lifestyle with personality dimensions, such as openness to experience, in their relations to cognitive functioning remains unclear. METHODS Two thousand eight hundred and twelve older adults served as sample for the present study. Psychometric tests on verbal abilities and processing speed were administered. In addition, individuals were retrospectively interviewed on their educational attainment, occupation, and regarding 18 leisure activities that had been carried out in mid-life. Moreover, openness to experience was assessed. RESULTS We found that the effect of openness to experience on cognitive functioning was mediated by educational attainment, cognitive level of job, and engaging in different leisure activities. Data were not better described by alternative moderation models testing for interactive (i.e. dependent) effects of openness to experience and cognitively stimulating engagement. CONCLUSIONS To explain interindividual differences in cognitive functioning in old age, present data are in line with a mechanism in which individuals with high openness to experience may have been more engaged in stimulating activities in early and mid-life. Possibly by increasing their cognitive reserve throughout adulthood, this may finally enhance their cognitive performance level later in old age.

Migration, occupational identity, and societal openness in nineteenth-century Belgium

This article examines social heterogamy as an indicator of ‘‘societal openness’’, by which is meant the extent to which social origin, as defined by the social position of one’s parents, is used as the main criterion for selection of a marriage partner. We focus on two topics. The role first of migration and then of occupational identity in this selection of a partner according to social origin. And in order to evaluate the true social and economic context in which spouses lived, we do not use a nationwide sample but rather choose to examine marriage certificates from eleven cities and villages in Belgium, both Flemish and Walloon, during the nineteenth century. By observing different patterns of homogamy according to social origin we show in this article that partner selection was affected by the relationship between migration, occupational identity and class structure. It seems difficult to interpret all these divergent patterns in terms of modernization. In our opinion the historical context creates a complicated set of conditions reflected in differences in the type and strength of migration and in the sectoral composition andevolution of the local economy. The whole exerts an influence over partner selection.

Representation of Vulnerability and the Elderly. A Total Survey Error Perspective on the VLV Survey

This chapter focuses on the “Vivre-Leben-Vivere” (VLV) research and explains how the team in charge has dealt with the issue of representing old people in Switzerland and the vulnerable persons within this population. For this purpose, we draw inspiration from the “total survey error” perspective and discuss the procedures that were used to collect the information, but also the quality of the information itself. We present some of VLV’s methodological choices, such as the contact procedures that were designed to “capture” the most vulnerable individuals, especially in a context where refusal rates for participation in surveys are increasing. We also consider the missing values in responses to some “complex” topics. Results show that participation rates are highly related to the effort that was made in order to recruit the individuals. This is critical for the VLV project, where people can show different degrees of vulnerability related to age, health, and/or poverty. In this sense, efforts such as repeated calls, home visits, and the proxy procedure were successful both in a general perspective and more specifically for a fair inclusion of vulnerable persons in the survey. At the same time, the non-response rates show to what extent it is difficult to explain the personal decision not to respond to a survey or to a question. We can find some traces of “interviewer effects” in the analysis of item non-responses, which we have done by using a logistic regression for one of the psychological tests included in VLV. Some aspects relate to interviewer and respondent characteristics, but others relate to the interview context, all highlighting the complex social interactions at stake.