Land Inequality and Demographic Outcomes: The Relationship between Access to Land and the Demographic System in 19th-century Rural Tuscany

In pre-industrial rural Italy, the disparities among smallholders, sharecroppers, and day laborers
were starkly defined by their unequal access to land, which significantly influenced their living
standards, family structures, and socioeconomic conditions. This paper uses nominative data from
1819 to 1859 to first explore how the different peasant categories adjusted their demographic
behaviors according to their tie to the land, and then how they were possibly modified when
short-term stressors, such as price increase and/or epidemics, altered the existing equilibrium.
The results reveal that the groups with access to land where less vulnerable and less susceptible
to economic crises compared to day laborers, who relied entirely on the market for essential food
supplies. During periods of high prices, day laborers experienced a rapid decline in their economic
situation, leading to increased mortality, migration, and postponement of marriages. However,
access to land was also associated with a demographic pattern aimed at both controlling
household consumption and maximizing the male labor force. This included strict control over
marriages, increased fertility, and selective mobility, all of which could intensify during crises and
periods of rising prices.
These findings underscore the inadequacy of the simplistic classification of landed versus
landless groups, emphasizing the necessity for a more sophisticated understanding of households
based on their relationship and connections with the land.