Editing German Confederation (section)

===Demographic transition===
The population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew 60% from 1815 to 1865, from 21,000,000 to 34,000,000.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1996|page=86}} The era saw the [[demographic transition]] take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported a fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of [[infant mortality]], plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to a veto by the parents. The upper and middle classes began to practice [[birth control]], and a little later so too did the peasants.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1996|pp=87–92, 99}} The population in 1800 was heavily rural,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clapham |first=J. H. |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89837 |title=The Economic Development of France and Germany: 1815–1914 |date=1936 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89837/page/n77 6]–28}}</ref> with only 8% of the people living in communities of 5,000 to 100,000 and another 2% living in cities of more than 100,000.