Human Capital and the Quantity-Quality Trade-Off during the Demographic Transition: New Evidence from Ireland

In this article I measure the child quantity-quality relationship in 1911 Ireland. My analysis shows that sibship size had a strong impact on the probability of school enrollment in both Belfast and Dublin. However, the magnitude of the relationship varied considerably across di fferent cohorts, most noticeably between the two cities. The existence of this relationship shows how the demographic transition played a vital role in the expansion of human capital and is highly consistent with the theoretical foundations of various long-run growth theories.