Available online
Description
Historians identify demographic crises as those periods when death rates rise sharply and there is a corresponding fall in the birth rate. This programme covers some of the statistical problems inv...olved in the definition of crises and outlines the moving average technique which is often used to identify crises. A careful study of the figures can help to isolate the causes of high mortality and a six point methodology for analysing demographic data from crisis periods is outlined here. This can be used to determine whether people died of famine or of epidemic disease in preindustrial Europe. This programme analyses data from 18th century Norway, the Ile de Prance in the 17th century and finally Cumberland in the late 16th century. The data is illustrated with video animations.
Historians identify demographic crises as those periods when death rates rise sharply and there is a corresponding fall in the birth rate. This programme covers some of the statistical problems inv...olved in the definition of crises and outlines the moving average technique which is often used to identify crises. A careful study of the figures can help to isolate the causes of high mortality and a six point methodology for analysing demographic data from crisis periods is outlined here. This can be used to determine whether people died of famine or of epidemic disease in preindustrial Europe. This programme analyses data from 18th century Norway, the Ile de Prance in the 17th century and finally Cumberland in the late 16th century. The data is illustrated with video animations.
| Module code and title: | D301, Historical sources and the social scientist |
|---|---|
| Item code: | D301; 03 |
| First transmission date: | 20-03-1974 |
| Published: | 1974 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:23:09 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Claire Falkner |
| Contributor: | Pauline Hammerton |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Baptism; Historical sources; Social science; Statistics |
| Footage description: | Hammerton introduces the programme in front of map of Norway. She recaps on TV2, bringing in concept of 'a moving average'. Tables and graphs accompany her explanation. She looks at individual dioceses in Norway to show up anomalies. Graphs of burial figures. Her attention is now turned to burial and conception records in the Beauvais area in the Ile de France. She examines 'demographic crises' in a number of parishes in the seventeenth century. Graphs, tables etc. She now discusses whether the rise in burials can be put down to famine or disease. To help in this she looks at any correlation here with the price of cereals and also the conception curve. Graphic representations. The conceptions in a number of parishes are looked at more closely in direct relation to the burials. She points out the resulting pattern. Hammerton now compares burial and birth figures in Cumberland for the 1590s to see if food shortages had caused demographic crises. She also elucidates six methodological points to decide whether people died of famine or epidemic disease. Various histograms of parishes under consideration. To emphasise the way figures can be handled, she examines burial figures in Penrith to show how the increase was probably due to disease. More histograms. Credits. |
| Master spool number: | 6HT/71269 |
| Production number: | 00525_2130 |
| Videofinder number: | 172 |
| Available to public: | no |
