Inter- and Intra-generational Fertility Patterns in Québec during the French- and English-regimes, 1621-1799

The proposed conference paper will produce a new set of general fertility estimations for the Québec population, drawing upon the Registre de la population du Québec ancien (RPQA). While the fertility behaviour of the pioneering generations is already known, the proposed paper will push our knowledge further forward in time, comparing fertility patterns under the two political regimes and across regions and parishes, and incorporating a host of new perspectives and methods. In particular, we will draw upon life course theory and biographical analytic methods to situate individual fertility patterns within the context of inter-generational and intra-generational patterns. Our study will focus on 25,115 women born in Québec during a later period, up to 1750, whose death date is known. This choice will allow us to compare the reproductive histories of women both before and after the change in political regime from French to English. A preliminary profile of these women indicates a population which was largely rural, whose first and last births occurred on average at ages 23.5 and 37.65. These women gave birth to an average 6.8 children, of whom an average of 5 survived to at least age 12.