1 See Rowntree, B. Seebohm, Poverty: a study of town life (London, 1902), pp. 170–4.Google Scholar

2 The Rowntree model may also be valid for societies with rural cottage industry. For an early example see Saito, Osamu, ‘Who worked when: life-time profiles of labour force participation in Cardington and Corfe Castle in the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries’, Local Population Studies 11 (1979), 14–29.Google Scholar

3 Stapleton, Barry, ‘Inherited poverty and life-cycle poverty: Odiham, Hampshire 1650–1850’, Social History 18 (1993), 339–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 It is not known whether the decision of the jury to exempt a household from the poll tax was only influenced by actual payments from children to parents or also by the ability of children to make such contributions. If the first were true, a household's worthiness for exemption could have been influenced by concealing from the jury payments from children to parents.

5 According to the 1810 census, 56 per cent of the households were farmer or cottager households, while an additional 27 per cent were households of agricultural labourers.

6 The listings for the years 1703–1715 contain little information besides names of the head of the household and amount of tax paid. The 1724 listing is incomplete. From 1725 listings are complete with only two minor gaps in 1793–1794 and 1806. Although listings in other villages may be more complete, Gilze and Rijen were chosen, since the local archivist F. J. Rehm prepared a family register containing all the information on the listings. The family register and the original listings are kept in the local archive at the Gemeentehuis in Rijen.

7 Besides designating certain households as poor, the listings also designate certain individuals in households as poor. Many of these poor were not residents, but people from other places in the barony of Breda, mostly from the city of Breda. Probably an unknown number of poor locals, mostly unmarried elderly people and orphaned children, were living in other households and were simply designated as inmates. Hence, we will restrict our analysis to the incidence of poverty among households only.

8 Xanten, H. J. van and van der Woude, A. M., ‘Het hoofdgeld en de bevolking van de Meierij van 's-Hertogenbosch omstreeks 1700’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 13 (1965), 3–96.Google Scholar

9 Hoevenaars, A. J. M., ‘Gilze, centrum van lokaal bestuur’, in Gilze duizend jaar: bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van Gilze, Chapter 6.Google Scholar

10 Verreyt, C. C., ‘Brand te Gilze in 1762’, Taxandria 21 (1914), 63–5.Google Scholar

11 Laslett, P., ‘Size and structure of the household in England over three centuries’, Population Studies 23 (1969), 199–223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

12 For details see Schellekens, Jona, ‘Mortality and socioeconomic status in two eighteenth-century Dutch villages’, Population Studies 43 (1989), 391–404, Appendix.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Those in other occupations include a baker, a bricklayer, two butchers, a carpenter, a cooper, a gardener, an innkeeper, a shoemaker, two shopkeepers, a thatcher and three weavers.

14 Schellekens, , ‘Mortality and socioeconomic status’.Google Scholar

15 There were only four sons aged 16+ who were found to be living at home. Three were at a marriage duration of 20 years and one at 19 years.

16 These units were adapted from Christer Lundh's article ‘Household and families in pre-industrial Sweden’ (Continuity and Change 10 (1) (1995), 33–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

17 For the Rowntree model see Fauve-Chamoux, Antoinette, ‘Household forms and living standards in preindustrial France: from models to realities’, Journal of Family History 18 (1993), 135–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Zalinge-Spooren, Lia van, Gemene middelen in de Meierij; St.-Michielsgestel en Gemonde 1737–1805 (Tilburg, 1987), 108, Table 2.Google Scholar

19 See p. 45 in van den Brink, G. J. M., ‘De structuur van het huishouden te Woensel, 1716–1803’, in van den Brink, G. J. M., van der Veen, A. M. D. and van der Woude, A. M. eds., Werk, kerk en bed in Brabant: demografische ontwikkelingen in oostelijk Noord-Brabant, 1700–1920 ('s-Hertogenbosch, 1989), 33–52.Google Scholar His published data are not comparable to ours since he uses the relative number instead of the proportion of untaxable households. The rise in the proportion of untaxable households seems to have been a common phenomenon in eastern North Brabant in the first two decades of the eighteenth century. See Xanten, van and Woude, van der, ‘Het hoofdgeld’, 28.Google Scholar The high levels of poverty in the first decades of the eighteenth century are reflected in the unusually high percentage of untaxable households in 1725 and 1726 for Gilze and Rijen (14.25 per cent and 11.25 per cent respectively).

20 Lis, C. and Soly, H., Poverty and capitalism in pre-industrial Europe (Atlantic Highlands, 1979), 171.Google Scholar

21 van den Eerenbeemt, H. F. J. M. (Bestaan en bedrijvigheid: aspecten van het sociaal en economisch leven in stad en Meierij van 's-Hertogenbosch 1750–1850 (Tilburg, 1975), 43–6)Google Scholar provides data on the proportion of untaxable people in 1792 for 108 villages in the bailiwick of 's-Hertogenbosch. Except for two small villages these proportions are all higher than those for Gilze and Rijen in the same year.

22 Compare p. 43 in Klep, P. M. M., ‘Het huishouden in westelijk Noord-Brabant: structuur en ontwikkeling, 1750–1849’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 18 (1973), 23–94.Google Scholar A physical sign of the differences in eighteenth-century agricultural prosperity between the eastern and western parts of North Brabant is the spread of the so-called Flemish barn (Vlaamse schuur), which supplied additional storage space for the harvest, many of which may still be seen in Gilze and Rijen today, but which were rare in the bailiwick. See Post, Kees, Het boerenhuis in Nederland ('s-Gravenhage, 1975).Google Scholar

23 No poll-tax records are available for 1793 and 1794. Hence the averages of NSMALL, NDAUGHT and NSONS for 1791–1795 are based on three years only.

24 Schellekens, Jona, ‘Determinants of marriage patterns among farmers and agricultural labourers in two eighteenth-century Dutch villages’, Journal of Family History 16 (1991), 139–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 The price of rye used in the analysis is that at the Amsterdam market in guilders per mud (120 litres). Price series in nearby Breda are not as complete, but are highly correlated with Amsterdam prices. See Posthumus, N. W., Nederlandse prijsgeschiedenis, vol. 2 (Leiden, 1964).Google Scholar Interpretation would have been easier had the cost of living index been included in the analysis but unfortunately such an index is not available.

26 In theory there may also be reverse causality. Higher wages may attract a larger number of agricultural labourers to set up a household in the villages. The regression results, however, do not support this hypothesis in the case of Gilze and Rijen.

27 For the ownership of pattle among agricultural labourers in Gilze and Rijen, see Schellekens, , ‘Mortality and socioeconomic status’, Appendix.Google Scholar

28 Dewez, W. J., De landbouw in Brabants Westhoek in het midden van de achttiende eeuw (Wageningen, 1958), 34.Google Scholar It was noted in the eighteenth century (Gemeentearchief Breda, R 602) that the inhabitants of the village of Teteringen near Gilze and Rijen had lost 2,107 cows due to cattle plague (graffeerende ziekte) between 1744 and 1756. We estimate that Teteringen had about 800 inhabitants divided over some 175 households in 1750. (See Klep, P. M. M., Groeidynamiek en stagnatie in een agrarisch grensgebied: de economische ontwikkeling in de Noordantwerpse Kempen en de Baronie van Breda, 1750–1850 (Tilburg, 1973), 202Google Scholar, for population size in 1762, and Klep, ‘Het huishouden’, 46 (for population growth) and 51 (for household size).) Thus during these years about one cow per household was lost annually on average! Elsewhere in North Brabant, closer to 's-Hertogenbosch, the village of St.-Michielsgestel was affected by cattle plague in 1771, 1774 and 1776. Annual statistics derived from tax records in St.-Michielsgestel indicate a substantial decline in the number of cattle during the two periods of cattle plague. See Zalinge-Spooren, van, Gemene middelen in de Meierij, 45 and 58.Google Scholar For the devastating effects of the epidemics in Holland, see Woude, A. M. van der, ‘The long-term movement of rent for pasture land in North Holland and the problem of profitability in agriculture (1570–1800)’, in Wee, Herman van der and Cauwenberghe, Eddy van eds., Productivity of land and agricultural innovation in the Low Countries (1250–1800) (Louvain, 1978), 171–82.Google Scholar

29 The effect of cattle plagues may differ from period to period, hence we used two dummy variables.

30 Post, John D., ‘Climatic variability and the European mortality wave of the early 1740s’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15 (1984), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Rogier, L. J., Eenheid en scheiding: geschiedenis der Nederlanden 1477–1813 (Utrecht, 1968).Google Scholar

32 The trend of NSONS partially follows that of NDAUGHT. Hence our model may underestimate the effect of NSONS on poverty levels.

33 Households which had lost their major source of income were of course especially vulnerable. Thus, widowhood may have been a cause of poverty. However, since widowhood may have influenced the likelihood of a household breaking up, we have not included a variable measuring the proportion of households headed by widows or widowers in the analysis. In a preliminary analysis we included a variable measuring the proportion of lower-class households headed by widows. This variable, however, did not have a significant effect.

34 Van Xanten, and van der Woude, , ‘Het hoofdgeld’.Google Scholar

35 Hoevenaars, , ‘Gilze, centrum van lokaal bestuur’, 355.Google Scholar

36 Theoretically there is the possibility of reverse causality. Daughters may have stayed with their parents because they needed their children's support. However, the finding that the ratio of male to female farm servants was higher than one, suggesting that the demand for women's employment was limited, supports the interpretation that daughters living at home were often un(der)employed and hence a potential cause of poverty.

37 Cunningham, Compare Hugh, ‘The employment and unemployment of children in England c. 1680–1851’, Past and Present 126 (1990), 115–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Information on adult ages is incomplete and even more damaging is the fact that the completeness of this information varies over time. Hence the variable indicating the age structure of the work force has been excluded from the analysis.

39 For the possible effects on fertility of the prospects of receiving income from children see Schellekens, Jona, ‘Wages, secondary workers, and fertility: a working-class perspective of the fertility transition in England and Wales’, Journal of Family History 18 (1993), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed