Revisiting the fertility transition: long term perspectives

One of the major demographic changes during the past 200 years is the emergence of the two-child norm as part of the creation of the modern family. Although the process of fertility decline in the West has received considerable attention in demographic research, most of the research has been macro oriented. For this reason, we know a great deal about the timing of the fertility transition in different regions, but less about specific features and causes. The aim of this paper is to use longitudinal micro-level data for seven local populations in Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries to further elaborate on the role of socioeconomic factors in the fertility transition. By applying identical analytical models and social class schemes we are able to study the impact of socioeconomic status on fertility before, during and also after the fertility transition. This allows us not only to test hypotheses about the reversal of class differences in the transition, but also to address possible determinants of fertility decline more generally. More specifically we look at the development of socioeconomic differences in marital fertility and relate it to common theories on fertility behavior as adjustment and innovation processes.

The empirical research undertaken so far on the Demographic Transition has yielded ambiguous and even contradictory results. Many historical studies have obtained erroneous results due to the demographic indicators used. Instead of analyzing the secular drop of fertility exclusively measuring the birth intensity we have used the number of “children surviving into adulthood.” Also, the methodological strategy of relating the fall of fertility with mortality to the adulthood (25 years old) and not only with the one occurred during the first year of life promises to yield very good results. The vast quantity of compiled data indicates us that, traditionally, there has been an adaptation of the fertility level to the existing mortality levels, which, in reality, the start of the fall in the “number of children surviving to 25 years of age” did not take place until the universality of Welfare State policies. Our hypothesis is that the design of the Welfare State has allowed for the protection of the adult-elderly people, but has severely penalized maternity.