Family Types and the Persistence of Regional Disparities in Europe

This article examines the association between one of the most basic institutional forms, the family, and a series of demographic, educational, social, and economic indicators across regions in Europe. Using Emmanuel Todd's classification of medieval European family systems, we identify potentia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic geography 2009-01, Vol.85 (1), p.23-47
Main Authors: Duranton, Gilles, Rodríguez-Pose, Andres, Sandall, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authoritarianism
Bgi / Prodig
Children
Classification
Community
Economic development
economic wealth and dynamism
education
Educational attainment
Employment
Europe
Families
Families & family life
Family structure
family types
Households
Human geography
Institutions
Labor force
labor force participation
Level of education
Parents
Parents & parenting
Population geography and social geography
Regional disparities
Regions
Regression analysis
Social capital
Social geography
Society
Studies
Wealth
Workforce
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Summary:This article examines the association between one of the most basic institutional forms, the family, and a series of demographic, educational, social, and economic indicators across regions in Europe. Using Emmanuel Todd's classification of medieval European family systems, we identify potential links between family types and regional disparities in household size, educational attainment, social capital, labor participation, sectoral structure, wealth, and inequality. The results indicate that medieval family structures seem to have influenced European regional disparities in virtually every indicator that we considered. That these links remain, despite the influence of the modern state and population migration, suggests that such structures are either extremely resilient or in the past were internalized within other social and economic institutions as they developed.
ISSN:0013-0095
1944-8287
DOI:10.1111/j.1944-8287.2008.01002.x