Irish farming households in Eastern Canada: Domestic production and family size

Irish farming households in Eastern Canada during the postfamine period (1861-1871) are used as the basis for a theoretical discussion of domestic production and family size. The purpose here is to extend discussion of the Chayanov (1966) model of peasant economies, and offer modifications of this model based on empirical variations in Irish Canadian household composition, dependency ratios, and overall farm size. This article suggests that the topic of choice and the assumption of risk be made a more explicit part of the Chayanov analysis, since farmers' decisions regarding productive capacity are apt to be made on a more holistic view of a farm's assets, and not just on the basis of cultivated acreage per worker.