| Summary: | The British demographic transition provides a strong counter factual to the Malthusian prediction that birth rates rise with income. Following 140 years of high population growth, the transition to lower birth and child mortality rates between 1876 and 1918, took place during and after the Industrial Revolution, a period when capita income was steadily increasing. During the transition, birth rates per 1000 women age 15-44 declined four times more than the probability a child would survive to her fifth birthday. A 55 percent decline in birth rates occurred along with a 12 percent improvement in child mortality. Between 1850 and 1918, birth rates fell 2.2 percent for a one percent increase in survival from birth to age 5.However, in the quarter century before the start of the transition, birth rates declined .1 percent with increases in the primary enrollment ratio, the share of children under age 12 enrolled in primary education. Although the school enrollment ratio doubled during the transition, the really dramatic increases in literacy and primary school enrollment occurred before 1876 when the student age population enrolled in primary school increased almost six fold from 6.9 percent in 1850 to 46.4 percent in 1876, at a time when improvement in child survival was negligible.
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