Historical demography is essentially a specialised branch of population studies which emerged only in the 1950s. Vigorous interest in historical demography has been witnessed in the last thirty years in France, England, U.S.A. and in other European countries. This is partially illustrated in the detailed list of ‘References’ in the book. Due to the paucity of annual series of data, it has not been possible to trace back the onset of fertility and mortality transition in Kerala–a dramatic turn around case in the history of Indian demography even in the absence of economic transformation. The present book seeks to remove this gap by using the Parish records, a rare venture in India conspicuously absent in the case of Kerala. The monograph inter-alia deals with the quality of Parish data and some basic trends of births, deaths and marriages separately. The linkage analysis is carried out to draw some inferences on the trends of fertility and mortality on the basis of linking births, marriages and deaths. In addition a comparison of the results obtained in Trivandrum has been made with those of a similar study carried out in respect of the Bombay Parishes by the senior author of this book. The study in the book is mainly confined to the present century due to the absence of data for the nineteenth century.
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