Land, fertility and family: A selected review of the literature in historical demography.

GENUS abstract: The relationship between family structure and fertility on the one hand, and land availability on the other, is a very critical; subject. In fact, the relationship clearly involves a series of macro- and micro-economic, social, cultural and demographic variables; which themselves form the very foundation of rural societies, in both their general and more specific features. We can clarify some aspects of this problem by examining a series of case studies, of European and non-European communities. This selection is far from complete, and its only scope is to provide information that highlights the complexity and variability of factors that conditioned reproductive patterns in relation to land availability in rural societies of the past.