Fast Life Histories in Response to Death Clustering, Antwerp 1846–1910

Evolutionary biology predicts that when confronted with conditions of high mortality humans, like other species, will respond to these circumstances with a fast life history strategy with early sexual maturation, riskier courtship and earlier reproduction. Such responses in the form of an earlier start of menarche for women and lower ages at first sex and birth have already been found in contemporary populations, but there is far fewer research on historical populations, particularly for men. In this study we examine whether high mortality in the sibset leads to earlier marriage by performing an event history analysis on the historical population of Antwerp in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. We find that this does indeed significantly speed up the transition to marriage (which is very closely linked to the start of reproduction, particularly in this historical population). By stratifying on family membership, we demonstrate that the mechanism works at the familial level and that individual experiences with sibling mortality have an opposite effect.