Pre-transitional marital fertility in Russian peasant population: a case of Vykhino estate, region of Moscow

Irina Troitskaia, Moscow State University
Alexandre Avdeev, Université de Paris I, Sorbonne

The authors make, for the first time in Russian historical demographic studies, the estimation of age-specific fertility in female birth and marriage cohorts in Russian peasant population in the 19th century on the basis of individual data. The use of the data collected from the parish registers allowed to construct more than 1400 complete reproductive histories of women married in Vykhino estate between 1815 and 1890. Russian population in the 19th century is supposed to be a natural fertility population. Demographic transition in Russia is usually dated with the end of the 19th century. Comparison of observed age-specific fertility with the standard patterns of natural fertility will allow estimating the extent of a deliberate birth control in different generations of Russian population, if any. The authors also estimate the effect of age at marriage and marriage duration on fertility.