Society

All Campop research is concerned with society, most particularly with aspects of social change and development which have a quantifiable aspect. The projects listed here include those which particularly focus on the social implications of demographic, economic, industrial, institutional or environmental change and those where innovative use of sources has provided new understandings of social aspects of demographic history.

Research projects

	Paupers and the workhouse 1851-1911 How did the composition of workhouse residents change over time? Were there geographical differences in the age and sex structure of the indoor poor? Why were pauper inmates punished and did this differ by workhouse?
	Religion and Society in eastern England c. 1710: analysing the Wake visitation returns This project uses the detailed information in Bishop Wake's pioneering printed questionnaire returns for the diocese of Lincoln (stretching from the Thames to the Humber) to analyse demographic, social and religious structures in the diocese. Apart from providing good population totals for more than 10 per cent of English parishes c.1710, the project will provide a geography of dissent, of educational provision, and even the make possible the tracing of local preacher networks at the hundred level.
	Longevity changes and their determinants in England and her European neighbours c. 1600-1900 In the analysis of contemporary adult longevity there has been a shift away from explanations that focus on adult life-style determined risk factors towards an emphasis on biologically programmed influences in utero or in very early infancy. This project uses historic data sets to assess the relevance of the aforementioned approaches under conditions primarily of natural (uncontrolled) fertility and mortality regimes dominated by a high incidence of infectious or epidemic disease.
	Malthus and welfare revisited Did poor relief in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when payments were increased according to family size, encourage early and improvident marriage and thereby undermine the preventive check and lead to excessive population growth? Were there regional contrasts in population growth rates between areas that paid outdoor relief and those where welfare was provided in workhouses?
	Housing, mobility and the measurement of child health from the 1911 Irish census Did Belfast families who moved house most often suffer an infant and child mortality penalty, during the first decade of the twentieth century?
	Doctors, deaths, diagnoses and data: a comparative study of the medical certification of cause of death in nineteenth century Scotland Did certain doctors working in Victorian Scotland favour particular diagnoses over others, and how did their diagnoses differ from those of lay persons? What are the implications for existing interpretations of changes in causes of death over time, in urban and rural areas?
	Birth attendants and birth outcomes in the Victorian and Edwardian eras Did doctors or midwives achieve the best health outcomes for mothers at the turn of the twentieth century, and can regional differences in the number of trained midwives explain striking variations in the geography of maternal mortality?