> As for "having multiple children leads to downward mobility" -- I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'd like to see some actual data on that. I thought the pattern

> As for "having multiple children leads to downward mobility" -- I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'd like to see some actual data on that. I thought the pattern was more "first son inherits, second son goes into the Army or Navy, third et al go into the clergy." And a clerical life was not bad at all, until 1850 or so. Sure, perhaps "not bad", but surely a step or three down from being lord of the manor (or duke of something bigger)? And as soon as you have more than two kids, there are more of these socially-downwards-mobile ones than of those that get to stay in the caste they were born into. So yes, seems perfectly plausible that for the majority of those children, their parents having multiple children does lead to downward mobility.