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Abstract

Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 28-39 (2000)

“Famines and the Changing Tempo of Population Change in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Japan”
Osamu Saito (The Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University)

Malthus considered famines a demographic corrective in the past. On this Malthusian view serious scepticism has been raised. For the Japanese past too, recent historiography has played down the role of famines in explaining population movements during the latter half of the Tokugawa period. This paper re-examines available lists of historical famines, then attempts to estimate the effect of the frequency of famines on population change for 1721-1885. Although its estimated effect was not great, the results show that given Tokugawa Japan's low levels of fertility, famines played an unmistakable role in accounting for a stagnant population over the period up to the 1840s and an upturn since then.