During the last part of the nineteenth century, Finnmark province and the Northern part of Troms experienced a decline in intergenerational coresidence. This article discusses what impact ethnic affiliation and economic activity had on the living arrangements of the elderly, and what contributed to the change. Logistic regression shows that ethnicity played a role but its effect disappears after controlling for economic activity. Intergenerational coresidence was positively associated with being a married Sámi male with an occupation in farming or combined fishing and farming. As such a person grew older, he was increasingly likely to live separately from an own adult child. This pattern changed toward the end of nineteenth century. By the close of the century, ethnic differences had disappeared, and headship position, irrespective of marital status, was strongly related to coresidence.
Peter Laslett, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in Household and Family in Past Time, ed. Peter Laslett and Richard Wall (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Peter Laslett, ‘‘Characteristics of the Western Family Considered over Time,’’ Journal of Family History 2 (1977): 89-116; Tamara K. Hareven, Family Time and Industrial Time: The Relationship between the Family and Work in a New England Industrial Community (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Tamara K. Hareven, ‘‘Aging and Generational Relation: A Historical and Life Course Perspective Intergenerational Supports for the Old in the United States: A Historical Life Course Perspective,’’ Annual Review of Sociology 20 (1994): 437-61; David Kertzer, ‘‘Toward a Historical Demography of Aging,’’ in Aging in the Past: Demography, Society and Old Age, ed. David Kertzer and Peter Laslett (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995), 363-83; George Alter, Lisa Cliggett, and Alex Urbiel, ‘‘Household Patterns of the Elderly and the Proximity of Children in a Nineteenth Century City: Verviers, Belgium 1831-1846,’’ in Aging and Generational Relation over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. Tamara K. Hareven (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 30-42; Timothy Guinnane, ‘‘The Family, State Support, and Generational Relations in Rural Ireland at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,’’ in Aging and Generational Relation over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. Tamara K. Hareven (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 100-19.
2.
Ståle Dyrvik, Historisk demografi: ei innføring i metodane (Bergen, 1983); Ståle Dyrvik, ‘‘Farmers at Sea: A Study of Fishermen in North Norway, 1801-1920,’’ Journal of Family History 18 (1993): 341-56; Sølvi Sogner, Far sjøl i stua og familien hans: trekk fra norsk familiehistorie før og nå (Oslo, 1990); Sølvi Sogner, ‘‘The Norwegian Stem Family: Myth or Reality?’’ in The Stem Family in Eurasian Perspective. Revisiting House Societies, 17th-20th centuries, ed. Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux and Emiko Ochiai (Bern: Peter Lang, 2009); Arne Solli, ‘‘Individ - hushald - samfunn: fisk og jord som grunnlag for hushaldsetableringa in Norge kring år 1800’’ (master’s thesis, University of Bergen, 1995); Arne Solli, ‘‘Livsløp - familie - samfunn: Endring av familiestrukturar i Norge på 1800-talet’’ (PhD dissertation, University of Bergen, 2003); Hans H. Bull, ‘‘Hushold og generasjonsskifter i Rendalen 1762-1900: Ættesamfunnets siste skanse?’’ (master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 2000); Eli Fure, ‘‘Gamle i flergenerasjonsfamilier - en seiglivet myte?’’ Historisk tidsskrift 1 (1986): 16-35.
3.
Erik Solem, ‘‘Yngste sønns arverett hos lappene og andre folk,’’ in Festskrift til rektor J. Qvigstad (Tromsø Museums Skrifter, Vol II, 1928), 300.
4.
Steven Ruggles used a similar methodology. Steven Ruggles, ‘‘Multigenerational Families in Nineteenth-Century America,’’Continuity and Change18 (2003): 139-65; Steven Ruggles, ‘‘The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence in the United States, 1850 to 2000,’’American Sociological Review72 (2007): 964-89.
5.
Kertzer, ‘‘Toward a Historical Demography of Aging,’’ 363-83; Ruggles, ‘‘The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence,’’ 964-89.
6.
Kertzer, ‘‘Toward a Historical Demography of Aging,’’ 363-83.
7.
Peter Laslett and Richard Wall, ‘‘Preface,’’ in Household and Family in Past Time , ed. Peter Laslett and Richard Wall (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972), x and 73.
8.
Peter Laslett, ‘‘Family and Household as Work Group and as Kin Group: Areas of Traditional Europe Compared,’’ in Family Forms in Historic Europe, ed. Jean Robin, Richard Wall, and Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 526, 531-2.
9.
Peter Laslett, The World we have Lost: Further Explored (London : Routledge, 1983), 92-3.
10.
Ruggles, ‘‘The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence,’’ 984-7.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Catherine B. Silver, ed., Frederic Le Play on Family, Work, and Social Change (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 261.
13.
Ibid., 259.
14.
The assumptions that underlines the nuclear reincorporation theory, introduced by The Cambridge Group in the early 1970s, have been challenged by several scholars: Hareven, Family Time and Industrial Time; Hareven, ‘‘Aging and Generational Relation’’; Tamara K. Hareven, Families, History and Social Change: Life-Course and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000); David Kertzer, ‘‘Household History and Sociological Theory,’’ Annual Review of Sociology 17 (1991): 155-79, among others, and a more comprehensive discussion concerning this criticism will be presented in the introduction of my dissertation-Northern Co-Residence across Generations In Northernmost Norway during the Last Part of the Nineteenth Century. My point, however, is that no one, except for Luz Berkner denies the numeric dominance of nuclear family households. Luz Berkner, ‘‘The Stem Family and the Developmental Cycle of the Peasant Household: An Eighteenth Century Austrian Example,’’ American Historical Review 77 (1972): 398- 418; Luz Berkner, ‘‘The Use and Misuse of Census Data for the Historical Analysis of Family Structure,’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (1975): 721-38.
15.
Kertzer, ‘‘Household History and Sociological Theory,’’ 161.
16.
See, for example, Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth Century England and America ( Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press , 1987); Steven Ruggles, ‘‘The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence in the United States, 1850 to 2000,’’American Sociological Review72 ( 2007): 964-89.
17.
Ibid.
18.
The map shows that there are no clear correlation between ethnicity and intergenerational coresidence on the municipality level.
19.
Einar A. Drivenes, Anne M. Hauan, and Helge A. Wold, ed., Nordnorsk kulturhistorie. Det gjenstridige landet ( Oslo: Gyldendal norsk forlag, 1994 ), 88-104.
20.
Håvard D. Bratrein, ‘‘Kystkultur og kystsamfunn i Nord-Norge,’’Heimen4 (1992): 217-26.
21.
Randi R. Balsvik, ‘‘Kvinner i nordnorske kystsamfunn,’’Historisk Tidsskrift4 ( 1991): 636-53.
22.
Einar Niemi , Vadsøs historie (Vadsø , bd 1, 1983).
23.
Lars I. Hansen, ‘‘Sami Fisheries in the Pre-Modern Era: Household Sustenance and Market Relations,’’Acta Borealia23 (2006): 56-80.
24.
‘‘NOU 1994:21 Bruk av land og vann i Finnmark i historisk perspektiv.’’ 7.1-14, cited October 1, 2009, available from http://www.regjeringen.no
25.
Inger Storli , ‘‘On the historiography of Sámi reindeer pastoralism,’’Acta borealia1 (1996): 81-115; Lars I. Hansen and Bjørnar Olsen, Samenes historie fram til 1750 (Oslo: Cappelens Akademiske forlag, 2004).
Drivenes et al., Nordnorsk kulturhistorie, 285-94.
28.
Ibid., 293; Einar A. Drivenes, Fiskarbonde og gruveslusk ( Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1985 ), 153.
29.
Ruggles, ‘‘The Decline of Intergenerational Coresidence,’’ 964-89.
30.
Norway 1865; The Digital Archive (The National Archive), Norwegian Historical Data Centre (University of Tromsø), and the Minnesota Population Center, National Sample of the 1865 Census of Norway, Version 2.0. (Tromsø: University of Tromsø, 2008), Norway 1875; The Norwegian Historical Data Centre (University of Tromsø) and the Minnesota Population Center, National Sample of the 1875 Census of Norway, Version 2.0. (Tromsø: University of Tromsø, 2008), Norway 1900; The Digital Archive (The National Archive), Norwegian Historical Data Centre (University of Tromsø), and the Minnesota Population Center. National Sample of the 1900 Census of Norway, Version 2.0. (Tromsø: University of Tromsø, 2008).
31.
Statistics Norway, Resultaterne af Folketællingen i Norge i Januar 1866 ( Oslo, 1868-1869).
32.
Statistics Norway, Bidrag til en norsk Befolkningsstatistik. Indledning til Tabeller indeholdende Resultaterne af Folketællingen i Norge i Januar 1876 (Kristiania: Det statistiske Central bureau, 1882).
33.
Statistics Norway, Folketællingen i Kongeriget Norge 3 December 1900. Hovedoversigt. Recensement du 3 Décembre 1900: Apercy General (Kristiania: Statistisk centralbyrå, 1906).
34.
Ibid., 86.
35.
Solli, Livsløp-familie-samfunn, 43-5.
36.
Hilde L. Jåstad, ‘‘Endring i samisk og norsk husholdstruktur: Nord-Troms og Finnmark i perioden 1865 til 1900,’’Historisk Tidsskrift 1 (2011): 33-60.
37.
37.Gunnar Thorvaldsen , ‘‘The Norwegian Census: An International and Long-Term Perspective,’’History of the Family9 (2004 ): 41.
38.
Dyrvik, ‘‘Farmers at Sea,’’ 348.
39.
Lars I. Hansen and Einar Niemi, ‘‘Etnisitet,’’ in Norsk Historisk leksikon , ed. Steinar Imsen and Harald Winge (Oslo: Cappelen Akademiske Forlag, 1999), 102-3.
40.
Gunnar Thorvaldsen , ‘‘Changes in Data Collection Procedures for Process-Generated Data and Methodological Implications. The Case of Ethnicity Variables in Nineteenth Century Norwegian Censuses,’’Historical Social Research34 ( 2009): 3.
41.
Ibid., 11.
42.
Ibid; Bjørg Evjen and Lars I. Hansen, ‘‘One People - Many Names: On Different Designations for the Sami Population in the Norwegian County of Nordland through the Centuries,’’Continuity and Change24 ( 2009): 225-30.
43.
Lars I. Hansen and Tore Meyer, ‘‘The Ethnic Classification in the Late Nineteenth Century Censuses: A Case Study from Southern Troms, Norway,’’Acta Borealia2 (1991): 47-56.
44.
Thorvaldsen, ‘‘Changes in Data Collection Procedures,’’ 168-90.
45.
In all 19 percent of the elderly lacked ethnic marker in 1865 while 12 percent lacked them in 1900. A total of 7 percent of the elderly in each census are given a Sámi marker, with proportional allocation for sex, marital status, and presence of own adult child. Different models with and without the 7 percent change for the Sámi population has been tried, and the results are consistent in both models.
46.
Jåstad, ‘‘Endring i samisk og norsk husholdstruktur,’’ 33-60.
47.
Kautokeino, Kistrand, Karasjok, and Nesseby are defined as the nomadic municipalities.
48.
Jåstad,’’Endring i samisk og norsk husholdstruktur,’’ 33-60.
49.
Solli, Individ - hushald - samfunn; Sølvi Sogner, ‘‘Familie, husstand og befolkningsutvikling,’’ Heimen XVII (1978): 708; Sogner, Far sjøl i stua, 36-9; Bull, Hushold og generasjonsskifter, 97-9; Fure, ‘‘Gamle i flergenerasjonsfamilier,’’ 35.
50.
Dyrvik, ‘‘Farmers at Sea,’’ 351-5.
51.
Sogner, ‘‘The Norwegian Stem Family,’’ 159-62.
52.
Ottar Brox , ‘‘Natural Conditions, Inheritance and Marriage in a North Norwegian Fjord,’’Folk. Dansk Etnografisk Tidsskrift6 ( 1964): 35-45.
53.
Nou1994, 7.1-7-14; Hansen, ‘‘Sami Fisheries in the Pre-Modern Era,’’56-80.
54.
Nou, Samiske sedvaner og rettsoppfatninger (2001), 34, cited October 1, 2009, available from http://www.regjeringen.no
55.
Einar Niemi , ’’Når man skyter hunder. En debatt om reindrift i Finnmark ved midten av 1800-tallet,’’ in Den komplexa kontinenten. Staterna på Nordkalotten och samerna i ett historiskt perspektiv, ed. Peter Sköld and Patrik Lanto ( Umeå: Umeå university, 2000), 117.
56.
NOU 1994, 7.1-7-14.
57.
In the Introduction, I discussed the changes in the enumeration instruction, and that the omission of ‘‘parent’’ in the relation to headship field might have resulted in a change in the enumeration practice. However, I also asked; if this was true, then why is there only a change in coresidence with married male children? At this point, I cannot leave out the possibility that the decline may have been caused by other factors. However, this requires a longitudinal analysis, which is out of the scope of this article.
58.
Narve Fulsås , ‘‘Hushaldsøkonomi og kapitalistisk økonomi i Nordland, 1850-1950,’’Historisk tidsskrift2 (1987): 28-52; Bratrein, ‘‘Kystkultur og kystsamfunn i Nord-Norge,’’217-26; Drivenes et al., Nordnorsk kulturhistorie.
59.
Drivenes, Fiskarbonde og gruveslusk, 153.
60.
Jåstad, ‘‘Endring i samisk og norsk husholdstruktur,’’ 33-60.
