Sheilagh Ogilvie
The Covid-19 pandemic rightly focused our attention on medical science. But working on economic history and historical demography, I’ve always been struck by how the outcomes of epidemics are shaped by more than microbes and medicines. Why did some societies suffer so much more than others? Why were some life-saving innovations adopted quickly in one place, but rejected for decades just a few miles away?
Tags: death, disease, economic history, epidemics, institutions, plague, social history
Posted in Sheilagh Ogilvie | No Comments »
Alice Reid
In 2011 David Cameron asked “Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations?” He went on to present a list of examples of the moral collapse he was talking about: “Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers.” This focus on a rise in lone parenthood (particularly lone motherhood) as an indicator of the erosion of moral fibre has been a popular refrain over recent decades, particularly among the political right wing, and has often been accompanied by calls to bring back Victorian values. An article in the Telegraph in 2017 focused on the rise in lone parenthood since Britain joined the EU in 1972, and suggested that Brexit was an opportunity to reverse this social decline.
Tags: demographic transition, demography, divorce, family, family history, historical demography, lone parenthood, marriage, social history, women's history
Posted in Alice Reid | No Comments »
Hannaliis Jaadla, Alice Reid, Eilidh Garrett and Romola Davenport
In terms of mortality, the UK currently stands out as one of the most regionally unequal countries in Europe. The divide between local authorities is stark: the gap in life expectancy at birth between the country’s wealthiest and poorest areas is around ten years. These figures reflect broader disparities that go far beyond health, revealing deep-seated structural imbalances in the country’s economic and social fabric.
Tags: demography, fertility, health, inequalities, mortality, north-south divide, regionalism, social history
Posted in Alice Reid, Eilidh Garrett, Hannaliis Jaadla, Romola Davenport | No Comments »
Kevin Schurer
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), in 2023 – the latest year for which information has been published – the top five most popular babies’ names for boys were, in descending rank order, Muhammad, Noah, Oliver, George and Leo, and for girls, Olivia Amelia, Isla, Lily and Freya. With the exception of George, such a list of names would have been appeared strange 50 years ago, and almost unthinkable a century ago.
Tags: names, naming practices, parish registers, poll tax, popular names, social history
Posted in Kevin Schurer | No Comments »
Alexander Wakelam
As the Summer months finally arrive, many of us – particularly those with extended families or with a large network of friends – will be preparing for the annual cycle of weddings. For some this may have already begun in early Spring and might continue into December. Weddings taking place throughout the year is hardly a novel phenomenon, but a growing diversity on which weekday marriages take place has represented a significant shift in nuptial practice over the last three decades. Since 2021 I myself have been invited to two weddings on a Monday, one on a Wednesday, and two more on Fridays alongside nine Saturdays.
Tags: history of marriage, marriage, social history, weddings
Posted in Alexander Wakelam | No Comments »
Amy Erickson
Since the 16th century, ‘spinster’ has denoted a never-married woman. Until 2005, in marriage registers all brides were either a spinster or a widow, and all grooms either a bachelor or a widower. But ‘spinster’ originated in the 14th century, formed from the verb ‘to spin’ with the feminine suffix ‘ster’, to mean a woman who spun a textile fibre. Presumably, spinning was so common an activity among single women that the second meaning grew out of the first.
Tags: marriage, social history, textile industry, women's employment, women's history, women's work
Posted in Amy Erickson | No Comments »
Amy Erickson
The English language uses three formal terms of address – Mr, Mrs, and Miss – for people ‘without a higher, honorific, or professional title’ (as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it). Many consider these terms archaic, and Go Title Free campaigns for their abolition with the slogan ‘Freedom from marital status titles’.
It is often assumed that the use of two honorific terms for women (Mrs and Miss), and only one for men (Mr), is a relic of patriarchal control in a system where men wanted to know women’s marital status. The real story is entirely different.
Tags: marriage, social history, women's history, women's work
Posted in Amy Erickson | No Comments »
Tracy Dennison
Serfdom is usually associated with the medieval period, and conjures images of an impoverished peasantry toiling under duress in the fields around the lord’s castle. This view is not so much incorrect as incomplete. In many parts of Europe, especially central and eastern Europe, there were still enserfed peasants in the 18th and 19th centuries. Serfdom disappeared from the European landscape gradually: first in England, in the decades after the Black Death, and last in Russia, by state decree in 1861.
Tags: economic history, Europe, medieval, serfdom, social history
Posted in Tracy Dennison | No Comments »
Emily Chung
The Industrial Revolution drastically changed the way people lived, worked, and socialised in Britain’s large towns and cities. England rapidly urbanised in the first half of the 19th century as the country’s population moved from the agrarian countryside into growing centres of industrial activity, drawn in by the promise of work.
Tags: class, industrial revolution, social history, urbanisation, wealth
Posted in Emily Chung | No Comments »
Romola Davenport & Jim Oeppen
Campop’s studies of mortality suggest that, in England, average life expectancy at birth varied between 35 and 40 years in the centuries between 1600 and 1800. It is a common misconception that, when life expectancy was so low, there must have been very few old people. In fact, the most common age for adult deaths was around 70 years, in line with the Biblical three score years and ten. So what does ‘life expectancy’ actually measure?
Tags: demography, economic history, life expectancy, mortality, old age, social history
Posted in Jim Oeppen, Romola Davenport | No Comments »
age at marriage agricultural revolution census Chinese history coal death demographic transition demography disease economic history English peasants extended family family history family size family tree famine fertility fossil fuels genealogies households industrial revolution marriage medieval medieval history middle ages migration mortality naming practices occupational structure occupations old age old people parish registers plague poor laws population size service social history surnames urbanisation wages women's employment women's history women's work work
© 2026 University of Cambridge
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure