Construction of a longitudinal and intergenerational database Antwerp, 18461920

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Construction of a longitudinal and
intergenerational databaseAntwerp, 1846-1920

• Prof. K. Matthijs
• Dra. S. Moreels

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History of the project (1)

• Research areas
• Contemporary demographical and family
  sociological social structures and developments
  (marriage, remarriage, divorce, female labor
  participation, family functioning, etc).
• Historical research mainly 19th century
• Start of historical demographical projects 1995
• Main sources
• 1. Vital statistics (birth, marriage, death
  certificates)
• First step ad hoc initiatives, taking into
  account different levels and timing of
  industrialisation, urbanisation,
  proletarianization and agricultural activities
• Towns Aalst, Ghent, Leuven, etc.
• Small villages Bierbeek, Poederlee, Appelterre,
  etc.
• Second step structural strategies of data
  gathering on a broad geographical scale
• Towns Antwerp
• Whole provinces Western Flanders, Flemish
  Brabant
• Long run Flanders (nothern part of Belgium)

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History of the project (2)

• 2. Population registers
• Leuven
• Antwerp
• 3. Other sources
• General population censuses (stock-statistics)
• Agricultural and industrial censuses

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Why Antwerp?

• (1) Data collection should begin in a big city
  for which less historical-demographical
  information is available and which can serve as a
  model for other regions. Antwerp was the city
  chosen for this purpose
• (2) Antwerp was the logical choice for our focus
  because it was the fastest growing city of
  Belgium in the 19th century. That was mainly the
  result of massive immigration
• (3) Due to their varying socio-economic and
  cultural background, the various groups of
  migrants wrote a different demographical history
  with respect to fertility, marriages, divorce,
  family formation, family networks, chain
  migration and death
• (4) An interesting question is whether modern
  integration today is following (or will follow)
  the same path as in the past (that is the
  standpoint of the so-called continuity school),
  or whether the modern processes are unique (that
  is the standpoint of the so-called uniqueness
  school). The latter standpoint is based on the
  fact that the circumstances are now different
  the welfare state is fully developed, there is a
  social security system, the migration policy is
  different.

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Why 1846-1920?

• (1) Pragmatic motive reliable population
  accounting began in Belgium around the beginning
  of this period. The first official census of the
  independent Kingdom (1830) took place in 1846.
  The was the start of the opening of the first
  Population Register
• (2) During the second half of the 19th century,
  the fertility transition reached cruising speed.
  The total fertility index fell from 4 or 5 in
  around 1850 to less than 2 in around 1940.
• With the Antwerp data, it is possible to
  reconstruct and interpret the
• transition, including the take off, the timing
  and the intensity of
• fertilty, mortality and nuptiality trends,
  respectively, for the native
• born and foreigners, for internal and external
  migrants, in a urban
• or semi-urban environment, and for both first,
  second and even
• third generations of migrants.

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Features of the Antwerp data

• (1) It spans nearly six decades of time (1846 to
  1920) and covers three generations
• (2) The members of these generations are coupled
  
• (3) The data base contains extensive micro-data
  on individual life courses and family patterns
• (4) The information on individuals and their
  families is connected to a rich array of
  contextual data
• (5) Given the fact that the groups of migrants
  are being followed over a period of time, it is
  possible to compare successive generations (the
  first, second and sometimes even the third
  generation) with each other and with the native
  population
• (6) The intergenerational structure makes the
  sample unique for Belgium. The data base enables
  the investigation of questions regarding social
  and cultural change which could not be considered
  with any other Flemish data base,

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Contexts for comparison (1)

• (1) Since the data relates to the entire district
  of Antwerp, urban processes can be compared with
  semi-urban and rural processes
• (1) Native versus foreign-born populations
• (2) Metropolitan versus suburban long-term
  developments
• (3) Intra- and intergenerational comparisons
• (4) All of which can be situated within both
  national and international context
• (2) The Antwerp immigration was often motivated
  by the employment opportunities at the port. Dock
  work is physically demanding and consequently
  there was a relatively high male labour migration
  to Antwerp. That as opposed to, for example, the
  developments in Ghent and Aalst where there was a
  greater import of female labour in the textile
  sector. That difference allows one to make
  relevant comparisons of the interaction between
  gender, work sector and migration status

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Contexts for comparison (2)

• For the period 1846-1920, the study group had
  access to all the information contained in the
  population register of Leuven. Therefore, it is
  also possible to draw a comparison between
  Antwerp and Leuven. Our comparative analysis may
  also incorporate the Walloon city of Verviers
  (data available from George Alter). These three
  cities provide a significant range of cultural,
  social and economic characteristics
• (4) Moreover we are able to bring an
  international dimension to our comparative
  research. The Historical Sample of the
  Netherlands (hsn)-project for instance shares a
  number of features with the Antwerp sample.

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Added value

• Linking of a large number of data elements (from
  different sources) relating to individuals
• Reconstruction of family characteristics, sibling
  systems and life courses (migrant versus
  non-migrant, urban versus semi-urban and rural)
• Supplementing the individual information with
  contextual data
• (4) Development of an intra- and
  intergenerational longitudinal perspective
  (period 1846-1920). This is really a new
  perspective that the Antwerp-sample brings to the
  study of migration and migrant reproductive
  behavior. We can indeed identify cor- subjects
  who lived in the Antwerp area before and after
  their migration. Only a few other data sets can
  do this.

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Construction of the data base

• Procedure
• (1) Data collection started with the population
  registers. After that the data will be
  supplemented with information from the
  certificates from the Register Office (birth,
  marriage and death)
• (2) In order to make useful comparisons,
  information must not be collected from just the
  city of Antwerp, but from the entire district
• (3) The information on individuals must be
  supplemented with socio-economic and cultural
  information at the regional and local level.
• The letter sample
• It was decided that it is best to work with an
  alphabetical sample, with
• selection on the basis of the surname. After
  analysis of the geographical
• and socio-demographical representative
  distribution of surnames, the
• letters COR were chosen. This represents 0.4 of
  the population.

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The letter sample

• Choice of the letter sample three reasons
• The letter combination COR
• Geographical distribution
• Socio-demographic representativety
• Language sensitiveness
• Diversity in family names
• Disadvantages of the letter combination
• Sample size 0,38

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Sources

• Population registers
• 1846, 1856, 1866, 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910
• Vital registration records (certificates of
  birth, marriage and death)
• 1846 - 1920

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Population Register example
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Data collection
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Data cleaning

• First name
• cleaned standardized to Latin variant
• Last name
• standardized according to 23 simple rules
• Place of birth
• standard municipality codes of the NIS or
  foreign code
• Date of birth (day/month/year)

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Data linkage (1)

• First step (automatically)
• selecting potential pairs of observations by
• 13 queries
• Second step (semi-automatically)
• evaluating the potential linkages

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Data linkage (2) second step

• Automatically
• Positive decision (linking) full resemblance of
  family name, first name, birth-place and
  birth-date
• Negative decision (not linking) match score lt
  8,8
• Manually
• Individual coupling form in Access

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Data linkage (3) Check

• Third step (automatically)
• assigning new identification numbers (new IDs)
  to the records
• Vital registration check
• Correcting completing the database with birth,
  marriage and death certificates

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Converting into a database

• From data-entry file to database
• 1 table with all fixed information and ID
• 4 tables with variable characteristics of the
  individual and ID
• Sequences individual life cycles
• Marriage and civil state
• Kinship
• Events
• Abstracting analyse tables for research

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Database structure
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Extending the database

• Linking new information two steps
• Data cleaning and linkage of the new data new
  table with unique persons
• Linking the new table with the original database
  (selecting potential linkages, automatical and
  manual evaluation and assigning new IDs to the
  linked records)
• Completing with the new vital registration
  records
• Converting into new analyse tables

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Status Quaestionis