Did Women in the Role of Grandmothers Affect their Daughter's Reproductive Behaviour and their Grand-offspring Survival Rates? Case Study of the Škvorec Domain in the 18th and 19th Centuries
2020
Abstract
The paper applies to "grandmother hypothesis", which explains that the menopause allows women to support the reproduction of their own children providing care to their grandchildren. The aim of the study, based on data excerpted from parish registers on the Škvorec estate in the 18th and 19th centuries, is to map out how often grandmothers lived in the same place as their children and to analyse potential effects of their presence on their daughters' reproduction as well as on their grandchildren's survival.
Only few results correspond with the assumptions of the "grandmother hypothesis". Apparently, the said hypothesis in not universally valid at least in terms of historical populations.