Abstract:The debate about the relationship between income and life events such as mortality and fertility has been ongoing for over 200 years. It remains a recurring topic of modern debate. In the last decade of the18th century, the Marquis de Condorcet, in France, and William Godwin, in England, believed that economic development — leading to improvements in the quality of life— would have the effect of reducing not only mortality rates but also fertility rates. However, in his Essay on Population, published in1798, Thomas Malthus takes issue with the progressive ideas of the two rational Enlightenment thinkers. (…)