Was Pre-Industrial Society Malthusian

The fundamental assumption of the Malthusian model of pre-industrial society is that reproductive success increased with income. However, the direct evidence for this proposition for any pre-industrial society is surprisingly weak. Indeed most tests of this assumption for pre-industrial England, France and Japan have failed to detect any link between either mortality and real incomes or fertility and real incomes. In this paper we exploit new sources of data for both England and New France in the seventeenth century to examine the relationship between income and fertility. We find that for England, a society close to a Malthusian equilibrium, there is a strong relationship of the expected form. But in land abundant New France with rapid population growth net fertility was actually higher for low income groups.