Intergenerational transfers, emigration, and the rural Irish household system

Abstract

Rural Irish household structure plays a central role in received explanations for Ireland's anomalous post-Famine demographic behavior. New sources show that Irish households at the turn of the twentieth century do not fit the model of nuclear-family households elaborated by Peter Laslett and others. Yet the Irish household system does not conform to the favored alternative, the stem-family model. The debate over household structure as conducted by historians of western Europe conflates two distinct issues, coresidence and household succession. Each are differentially related to the household's functions as an economic unit. Empirical tests demonstrate the relationship between inheritance practices and household economic circumstances in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century. These results demonstrate the reflection of household strategies in household morphology and illustrate the relationship between economic circumstances, life-cycle strategies, and household dynamics.