Fertility, Infant Mortality and Economic Development in Tokugawa and Modern Japan

• In Event: Japan in Motion: A Panel Exploration of Understanding Japan’s Social and Economic Changes through Historical Horizons (Late-19th Century to Mid-20th Century).

Abstract

Firstly, the paper explores how Tokugawa peasant households reacted to the development of market economy from the view of economic strategy of subjective equilibrium which each peasant household engaged in both self-consumed production and market-oriented one in general pursued. When they faced the opportunity of entering market to get money, did they choice reducing self-consumed agricultural production to increase labor allocation for market? Secondly, redistributing family labor to the above engagement, peasant married women would directly receive the good or bad effect from the change of their labor environment, if they were pregnant, not only mothers but their children were also exposed to the change of their rearing environment. For example, infant mortality would be one of best index for measuring the effect of the change to children which indicates the level of their standard of living. The paper explores how the infant mortality was changed when peasant changed their productive behavior from self-consumed outside agricultural production to market-oriented inside by-employment. Needless to say, the steady decline of national infant mortality from 1920s in Japan needed not only each household level reaction but the cooperation with social capital and the strong support from municipal organization. Thirdly, the deep penetration of fertility analysis of Tokugawa peasant based on both evidence and speculation made us recognize the incredibly high incidence of miscarriage and stillbirth among Tokugawa pregnant women whose marital fertility was originally at the moderate level. The reasons for this, including the spread of sexually transmitted disease (STD) through the urbanization of rural area will be explored.

Author

• Kenichi Tomobe, Osaka University