Vasilis S. Gavalas

Population Dynamics in Ethnically Diverse Towns: The Long-term Implications of Immigration

Ethnically diverse urban areas are often strongly influenced by the demographic consequences of immigration. A dynamic model of population, housing and social change following immigration is proposed and then tested using a time-series of census data for northern English towns. The results show how natural growth generates dispersal of immigrant populations to new clusters. They chart the changing nature of cities and challenge the interpretation of clustering as a negative phenomenon representing retreat and separation. Instead, the focus is moved to indicators of migration, demand for housing and services, and social equality. The post-immigration demographic cycle proposed is a general one that may be tested in many other situations and countries.

Marriage patterns in Greece during the twentieth century

Typologies of marriage patterns in early modern Europe have been formulated by John Hajnal and Peter Laslett. However, demographic and anthropological studies have noticed that marriage patterns in the Balkan area have exhibited such great variability that it is difficult to classify them in any of the categories proposed by Laslett. This article examines the marriage patterns in Greece and some of her island populations in the time-span of the twentieth century. Although the marriage patterns examined do not conform to any pre-defined typology, it seems that up to the first half of the twentieth century the pattern of mainland Greece constituted an intermediate case between the West and the East European marriage patterns but that that on the islands was totally different. The marriage patterns on the Ionian Islands had more features in common with the West European pattern, while the marriage pattern of the Cyclades reveals certain characteristics (but not all) of the Mediterranean pattern.

Island mortality in the past: some evidence from Greece.

This paper explores the course of infant and childhood mortality in the Greek island of Paros from the end of the nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century. For this purpose the method of family reconstitution has been applied to two towns on the island. Official population statistics have been used to derive basic mortality estimates for the Cyclades and Greece as a whole. Reference to other studies concerning island mortality is also made. Hence, there appears the chance to compare insular with mainland mortality and realise that insular mortality presented some distinct features. It is shown that island populations presented lower mortality than the national average until the first decades of the twentieth century. However, by the 1950s Greeces infant and childhood mortality had dropped to the same or even to lower levels than those of the islands.

Diverse Marriage Patterns in Imperial Germany

Based on the German census of 1900, this article describes marriage patterns in Imperial Germany. The general marriage pattern did not markedly deviate from the “European” one. Nevertheless, the analysis uncovered interesting geographical variation. The male pattern presented differentiation between eastern and western Germany, with levels of male permanent celibacy being lower in the eastern parts of the Empire. However, the extent of female permanent celibacy was great, especially in Prussia. This is probably associated with a dearth of males at marriageable ages due to historical circumstances (migration and wars that decimated young males) in the 1860s and early 1870s.

The history of family and community life through the study of civil registers: Paros in the 20th century

A plenitude of information can be shed on family history and community life by studying civil registers. The case study here is the island of Paros in the period 1894–1997. This period of one century saw the transformation of the insular rural society to one dominated by the third-sector economy and the passage from illiteracy to total literacy. These structural socio-economic changes influenced the timing at which people were procreating, marrying and even dying. The labour-intensive hard work in the fields, as well as religious regulations, had shaped a highly seasonal pattern in conceptions and consequently in births, which was in action well into the first half of the twentieth century, but is attenuating as we approach the present day. Marriage remains a seasonal phenomenon in the examined population (although not to the extent it used to be) because the canon rules of the Orthodox Church are still determining the timing of weddings. Mortality was highly seasonal for infants and children up to the 1940s, revealing that certain diseases (mainly diarrhoea and contagious diseases) were striking at certain periods of the year, while adult mortality presents a different seasonal pattern. Causes of death, which are available from civil registers, were used to explain the seasonal variations of deaths. Civil registers are also used to study the famine which struck the island (along with the rest of Greece) in 1941–42 as a direct effect of the Second World War.