Demographic Responses to Economic Stress and Household Context in Three Northeastern Japanese Villages 1708-1870

This study examines the demographic responses of men and women in preindustrial rural Japan to economic stress—both acute upheaval caused by large-scale famines and smaller-scale local economic downturns—and to household context, using data drawn from the local household registers of three northeastern villages from 1708–1870. Modeling death and out-migration as competing risks, we compare two villages totally agricultural and one near a growing market town in their responses to acute stress caused by three widespread famines—the Horeki famine in the 1750s, the Tenmei famine in the 1780s, and the Tenpo famine in the 1830s—and to annual local economic fluctuations, simultaneously accounting for the effects of household context including landholding, coresident kin, and relationship to household head.