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∂AIL Dr. Etienne van de Walle↓Population Studies Center
↓University of Pennsylvania↓Philadelphia, PA 19104∞

Dear Dr. Walle:

	I just read your review in %2Science%1 of McKeown's %2The
Modern Rise in Population%1, and it inspired me to ask your opinion
of an idea that occurred to me some years ago.

	The idea is that the modern rise in population has nothing
to do with a lowering of the death rates, but is a consequence of a
rise in birth rates associated with the creation of a labor market.
In traditional societies, the possibility of marriage seems to have
depended on acquiring a niche in society that permitted supporting
a family.  Such niches were usually inherited or, in the case of
women, obtained by marriage.  A person who did not obtain a position
permitting marriage had to accept a social role not involving marriage.
These included the clergy, soldiers, many domestic servants and many
agricultural laborers.  The inheritance of social position permitting
marriage applied to the upper classes as well.

	There is substantial evidence for this in literature and
history.  Jane Austen tells about men who married at the age of fifty
when an unexpected inheritance permitted it.  Folk tales are full
of stories about the youngest son seeking a fortune that would
permit him to marry.  Relics of the point of view that social
position was required for marriage survived in England and America
well into the twentieth century.

	The traditional society was disrupted by the creation of
a labor market by industrialization.  %2The essence of a labor market
is that anyone can apply for a job%1.  If he gets it and keeps it,
he can marry and have children.  It seems to me that I have read that
the original factories in England were based on the idea that their
workers were temporary residents of the city, would live in dormitories,
and return to rural society.  I believe that this was also the case
in the industrialization of Japan in the nineteenth century.
However, once a worker started a family, he could not return to
the rural environment except by inheriting a position even if
living conditions in the city were worse than those in the country.

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	Can you tell me if this is an old idea that has somehow been
refuted?  I haven't seen it in print, but I haven't studied the
scientific literature on the subject.  If it is new, I would like
to publish it, perhaps as a brief note in some journal.  It seems to
me that the idea could be tested by seeing looking for a change in
the percentage of second and third sons who themselves had children.

.sgn