Population structure in the Western Pyrenees: social class, migration and the frequency of consanguineous marriage, 1850 to 1910.
The effects of social class on migration distances and on the frequency of consanguineous marriages in Errazu, a Pyrenean village in Navarre, Spain, have been studied using data from parish records of baptisms and marriages, 1850-1910, and the census data for the year 1897. Migration distances are greater for tenants than for land-owners. Mean marital distances are not significantly different for the two social classes, but the movement of tenant families during married life results in significantly different parent-offspring distances for the two classes, at the 0.001 level for fathers and at the 0.002 level for mothers, by a t-test. Consanguineous marriages, up to and including third cousin marriages, are more frequent among land-owners (16.3 per cent) than among tenants (3.7 per cent). These frequencies are consistent with estimates based on the demographic characteristics of the population. Some implications of these results are discussed with reference to the findings of communities elsewhere in Europe and studies of communities in Japan. The implications of variation in the social class composition of populations with population density, for pedigree inbreeding values, are also considered.
D003241:Consanguinity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008423:Maternal Age; D010331:Paternal Age; D012923:Social Class; D013030:Spain; D014171:Transients and Migrants