The Effect of Migration on the Estimation of Marriage Age in Family Reconstitution Studies

Ruggles has shown that, if marriage and migration are independent phenomena, age at marriage estimates derived from family reconstitution studies can be misleading because those who marry late are more likely to have migrated before marriage than those who marry early. Marriage age estimates based on ‘stayers’ will therefore be lower than would be the case if ‘leavers’ were also included. Whether this was true of English reconstitution data, however, is an empirical rather than a logical question. Evidence from the Census of 1851 suggests that the mean age at marriage of ‘leavers’ was very similar to that of ‘stayers’ (i.e. that marriage and migration were not independent phenomena). But, though age at marriage was much the same in the two groups, the proportions ever marrying were very different: celibacy was far commoner among ‘stayers’ than among ‘leavers’.