CurtAdams@aol.com writes:
>The number of kids will go up more slowly than the
>wealth, as each kids is getting more resources, but it will still increase.
>it was the
>situation in early modern (pre-industrial) Europe. It's conventional wisdom
>that this situation applies to most other pre-industrial societies.
>
>The puzzle is why this outcome does not apply to industrial societies.
This thread started by my mentioning a study showing that in a
*pre-industrial* society, wealthy dads did not have more kids.
Right. No doubt in some pre-industrial societies, wealthy dads did not have
more kids. There's a lot of variety in human societies. But in most, they
had more, at least according to conventional wisdom. In Europe, with fairly
good records of births and social standing, it was definitely the case. I'll
wager it's also the case in any other large society with good records (e.g.
China or the Ottoman Empire) or we'd already have heard about it.