The impact of parental death on the timing of first marriage: Evolutionary versus social explanations (The Netherlands, 1850-1940)

Background : This article examines the impact of parental death in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood on male and female age at marriage in the Netherlands in the period 1850-1940. It follows an interdisciplinary approach as it considers explanations based on social and demographic history and evolutionary biology. Objective : We study the classical historical framework in more detail by controlling for the age at parental death. Moreover, we study if evolutionary or social-demographic explanations are better able to predict the impact of parental death on marriage behavior in a historical... Mehr ...