Rural and urban areas in the 19th century: three Belgian demographic regimes during the Industrial Revolution

peer reviewedAnalysis on demographic regimes consider demographic behaviors as a whole, and their relations to changing economic resources. This paper addresses this issue in an area where industrial revolution was precocious, intense and rapid. The study considers three populations, all located in Eastern Belgium: a modern rural area (Pays de Herve), a poor agricultural village (Sart) and a growing industrial centre (Tilleur). The analysis is based on two main axes: on one hand, the interest is understanding how neighbouring populations, facing a same drastic change of their socio-economic environment, adapted to new structures. What were the rhythms of the adaptations? Which demographic behaviours did they favour? On the other hand, the relationships between the urban and rural demographic regimes belonging to a same economical space are analysed. It appears that the two rural societies succeeded thanks to a re-enforcement of their traditional demographic regime, and they maintained their family system. At the opposite, in the urban sample, the break with traditional brake allowed the adaptation and fed demographic growth