If you want a quick indicator, look at children per childbearing-age woman. In the developed world, it’s around “2”. Centuries past, it needed to be several – because there was a good chance a large portion of the kids were going to DIE before reaching reproductive age (and each childbirth was another significant probability for the mother to die). Let’s see, off the top of my head – smallpox, cholera, measles, polio, all were major factors. Plus any infections were potentially life-threatening (no antibiotics). That’s just part of the story. Having no Social Security, no national health care, no disability, no labor safety regulations (in short, *Libertarian utopia*), meant anyone who was old, sick, injured, etc was going to suffering much more than with even a begrudged minimal social safety net. There was no Good Old Days.