Demographic Responses to Economic and Household Conditions in Tokugawa Japan: Evidence from Three Northeastern Villages, 1708-1870

Noriko Tsuya, Keio University
Satomi Kurosu, Reitaku University

This study examines the demographic responses of individual men and women in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) to economic conditions--acute upheaval caused by large-scale famines and local economic conditions--as well as to household context, using micro-level data drawn from the household registers in three northeastern villages from 1708-1870. Modelling death and out-migration as competing demographic events, we compare two totally agricultural communities and one within close proximity to a growing urban center in their responses to large-scale famines that devastated northeastern Tokugawa Japan, and also to annual local economic fluctuations, simultaneously accounting for the effects of household conditions including landholding, coresident kin. and relationship to household head.

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 Presented in Session 173. Escaping the Bad? Demographic Consequences and Migration Outcomes