Migration in world history: Family systems, fertility and gender?

12/11/2008 - 16:00

12 November 2008
16.00 - 17.30 hrs

Lecture by Leslie Page Moch, Professor of History, Michigan State University, U.S.

Both Chinese and Europeans moved nearly everywhere over the globe in the century between 1840 and 1940. Europeans headed for North and South America and Australia, in the main, and although Chinese also went to the Americas and north Asia, the vast majority traveled to Southeast Asia. This presentation will delineate the distinct patterns of Chinese and European migration, contending that demographic and family systems are intimately related to who is free to go and who wants to leave and thus to the global history of migration. It addresses the broad question of what are the links among family forms, demographic patterns, and global migration.

Historical demographers have focused on changes in birth and death rates and in marriage patterns over the centuries; family historians have focused on the organization of families - this presentation will consider how both demographic patterns and family organization affect migration in populations that offer a rich contrast to one another. It will present commonalities and contrasts between Chinese and European families, emphasizing patriarchy, patrilocality, adolescence, childbearing, and mortality, concluding with a discussion of changes in historical migration patterns at the close of this period.

Leslie Page Moch is Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650 (Indiana University Press, 2003). She is currently finishing a manuscript about internal migration in France with the working title The Pariahs of Yesterday: Bretons in Paris.

Venue:
Lipsius Building (room 208, 2nd floor)
Cleveringaplaats 1
Leiden, the Netherlands

Information: IIAS, 071-527 2227 or iias@let.leidenuniv.nl

This is the third lecture in a Series on Global Migration Patterns, convened by Dr Melody Lu (IIAS) and Prof. Leo Lucassen (Leiden University)