Economic growth and demography in proto-industrial societies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the role played by the main demographic factors associated with societies that experienced a proto-industrial mode of production. It also attempts to explain how these variables influenced over time to shape the demographic evolution during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries The overwhelming majority of texts that study the formation of proto-industrial societies refer to demographic dynamics through a series of indicators such as age at marriage, These variables play a central role in the academic debate; therefore, this paper proposes to recognize them as key pieces of the backbone that sustains proto-industrial theory: what are the demographic factors to be considered to help us explain the evolution of the first steps of the industrialization process?