- Many New Englanders married and produced large families.
- The cold climate and well-drained soil limited the impact of disease.
New England colonies continued to grow after the Restoration in 1660, due to natural increase - a surplus of births over the deaths. Because so many of the original migrants had come over and families, sex ratios were relatively balanced and most New Englanders married. With limited access to contraception, couples produced many offspring, on average about seven or eight infants per woman.
At the same time, New England’s cold climate and well-drained land limited the impact of disease and thus contributed to the high average life expectancy‘s relative to other American societies. In New England‘s farming villages in the 17th century, colonists who reached the age of 20 typically lived to around 65.
High fertility and low morality enabled a society founded by 20,000 Puritans in the first half of the 17th century to grow into a populous colonial region even after the tide of migration stopped.
As New England families grew, the lands allotted to townships could no longer be subdivided to support all of their founders’ descendants. Young men moved to newer towns, migrated west word and north word to unsettled areas, or left New England all together. From 1670 on, more people moved out of New England than moved in. Although New England life continued to revolve around small, close knit, religiously homogenous towns, increasing numbers of New Englanders after 1700 lived either on farms far removed from original settlements or in crowded commercial seaports.