Starting, stopping, and spacing during the early stages of fertility transition: The experience of German village populations in the 18th and 19th centuries

Knodel, John

doi:10.2307/2061627

Cited by 81 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…3 It has been argued that spacing of this sort played an important role in the initial decline in fertility in at least some populations (Anderton and Bean 1985) although this has been disputed (Knodel 1987) and the evidence for it is far from clear cut (Anderton 1989;McDonald and Knodel 1989). 4 We do not consider the entry of young women into motherhood.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 98%

On Postponement and Birth Intervals

Timæus

Moultrie

2008

Population & Development Rev

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Much of the literature on fertility transition presumes that women birth control is practiced either to limit family size or to space births. This paper argues that women also use contraception to postpone pregnancy. Postponement is not synonymous with spacing. It arises when women delay their next birth for indefinite periods for reasons unrelated to the age of their youngest child, but without deciding not to have any more children. Postponement has a distinctive impact on the shape of birth interval distributions that differs from those of family size limitation, birth spacing, or a mixture of the two behaviours. Some populations, such as that in South Africa, have developed fertility regimes characterized by birth intervals far longer than can be accounted for by birth spacing. Postponement of further childbearing that eventually becomes permanent may be an important driver of the transition to lower fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Timaeus & Moultrie 3The main immediate motivation for using contraception is obvious: it is to avoid pregnancy, or at least to reduce the risk of conception associated with sexual intercourse. In other words, contraception is used for birth control. The reasons why women and their partners may wish to avoid pregnancy and childbearing are many and varied. However, much of the demographic literature on fertility transition classifies motives for birth control into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive theoretical categories -the limitation of family size and the spacing of births.This paper suggests that a third important motive exists for using contraception. It is to postpone or delay pregnancy and giving birth. Birth postponement is not synonymous with birth spacing. It is conceptually distinct and has a different impact on birth interval distributions. Fertility regimes characterized by very long birth intervals cannot arise from spacing but can only be explained by widespread postponement of births achieved by contraceptive and other means. Postponement can have a substantial impact on aggregate fertility. In particular, it may be an important driver of fertility decline in Africa.The arguments just summarized are developed in successive sections of the paper. The first of these critically reviews the literature on fertility intentions and motivations for contraceptive use. It argues that the substantive, measurement, and programmatic concerns of demography have tended to direct researchers' attention away from careful consideration of reasons for practicing birth control other than family size limitation. While the importance of distinguishing postponement of births from spacing of births has been pointed out before, it has not become part of the commonplace wisdom of everyone studying fertility transition.The second substantive section of the paper considers birth interval distributions. It argues that the impact of contraceptive use on the duration-specific hazard of giving birth differs depending on whether contraception is being used for stopping, spacing, or post...

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 98%

On Postponement and Birth Intervals

Timæus

Moultrie

2008

Population & Development Rev

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“…The accumulated response of birth rates after a positive shock in wages amounts to 0.71, 1.41, and 1.53 in the …rst, second and third year after the shock, respectively while the equivalent responses of marriage rates are 0.46, 0.58 and 0.53 (Table 2). 19 This implies that the positive shock in wages induced 0.71 per thousand new births one year later but only 0.46 per thousand new marriages and 1.41 new births two years later and only 0.53 new marriages. 20 Consequently, changes in marital fertility account for half or more of the preventive check.…”

Section: The Debate About Contraceptive E¢ciencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However the opposite is not true: the absence of evidence of stopping is not proof that fertility control within marriage did not exist (Wrigley 1997 , p. 457-461). An alternative strategy to limit the number of children is based on "spacing" births which coincides with a more gradual reduction of the number of births and it is fully consistent with a natural fertility regime (Knodel 1987). Given that the English population has quite long birth intervals, the existence of an intentional fertility control based on a spacing strategy is a plausible hypothesis (Santow 1995) and in fact, there is some evidence that fertility control within marriage was not uncommon in some sectors of the English population in the seventeenth century (Wrigley 1966, Crafts andIreland 1976).…”

Section: The Debate About Contraceptive E¢ciencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Was Malthus right? A VAR analysis of economic and demographic interactions in pre-industrial England

Nicolini

2007

European Review of Economic History

123

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This paper shows that the interaction between economic and demographic variables in England before the onset of modern economic growth did not fit some crucial assumptions of the Malthusian model. I estimated a vector autoregression for data on fertility, nuptiality, mortality and real wages over the period 1541-1840 applying a well-known identification strategy broadly used in macroeconomics. The results show that endogenous adjustment of population to real wages functioned as Malthus assumed only until the 17th century: positive checks disappeared during the 17th century and preventive checks disappeared before 1740. This implies that the endogenous adjustment of population levels to changes in real wages -one of the cornerstones of the Malthusian model-did not work during an important part of the period usually considered within the "Malthusian regime".

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“…It has been a widely held view in historical demography -stressed for instance in the conclusions of the European Fertility Project -that the great fertility decline during the first demographic transition was caused by, or at least intimately connected to, the advent and diffusion of parity-dependent fertility control (see, e.g., Cleland and Wilson 1987;Coale and Watkins 1986;Knodel 1977Knodel , 1987Knodel , 1988. This led to a limitation of family size and to declining marital fertility; before the decline however, family size was not limited in a deliberate way (Knodel 1978(Knodel , 1987(Knodel , 1988Wilson 1984).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This led to a limitation of family size and to declining marital fertility; before the decline however, family size was not limited in a deliberate way (Knodel 1978(Knodel , 1987(Knodel , 1988Wilson 1984). Even though it was sometimes acknowledged that non-parity specific control might have been practiced, it was usually judged not to have been of great importance before, or early, in the fertility decline (Knodel 1987). French demographer Louis Henry coined the term natural fertility to describe this absence of parity-specific fertility control, which characterized most pre-transitional societies (Henry 1961).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Deliberate Fertility Control in Pre-transitional Populations: Evidence from six German villages, 1766–1863

Dribe

Scalone

2010

Eur J Population

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This article deals with the possible existence of deliberate fertility control before the fertility transition. The timing of the fertility response to economic stress, as measured by fluctuations in grain prices, is used as a measure of deliberate, but non-parity specific, control. Birth histories from six German villages , including information on occupation of the husband, are used together with community-wide grain price series in a micro level eventhistory analysis. The results show a negative fertility response to grain prices both in the year immediately following the price change, and with a one-year lag. The response was also highly different between socioeconomic groups, with the most pronounced effects among the unskilled laborers. Moreover, the response in this group was very rapid, already present 3-6 months after the price change. Because all involuntary fertility responses to economic hardship (e.g. malnutrition, spousal separation, and spontaneous abortion) come with a considerable time lag, the existence of such a rapid response among the lower social groups suggests that individual agency (deliberate control) was an important aspect of reproductive behavior also before the fertility transition.Keywords: Deliberate fertility control, natural fertility, historical demography, Cox proportional hazards model, economic stress 1 Mise en évidence d'un contrôle volontaire des naissances dans des populations pré-transitionnelles: Le cas de 6 villages allemands, 1766-1863 Abstract This article deals with the possible existence of deliberate fertility control before the fertility transition. The timing of the fertility response to economic stress, as measured by fluctuations in grain prices, is used as a measure of deliberate, but non-parity specific, control. Birth histories from six German villages (1766-1863), including information on occupation of the husband, are used together with community-wide grain price series in a micro level eventhistory analysis. The results show a negative fertility response to grain prices both in the year immediately following the price change, and with a one-year lag. The response was also highly different between socioeconomic groups, with the most pronounced effects among unskilled laborers. Moreover, the response in this group was very rapid, already present 3-6 months after the price change. Because all involuntary fertility responses to economic hardship (e.g. malnutrition, spousal separation, and spontaneous abortion) come with a considerable time lag, the existence of such a rapid response among the lower social groups suggests that individual agency (deliberate control) was an important aspect of reproductive behavior even before the fertility transition.Keywords: Deliberate fertility control, natural fertility, historical demography, Cox proportional hazards model, economic stress Résumé Cet article s'intéresse à l'existence possible d'un contrôle volontaire des naissances avant la transition de la fécondité. Le calendrier de l'évolution de la fécondité e...

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Starting, stopping, and spacing during the early stages of fertility transition: The experience of German village populations in the 18th and 19th centuries

Cited by 81 publications

References 15 publications

On Postponement and Birth Intervals

On Postponement and Birth Intervals

Was Malthus right? A VAR analysis of economic and demographic interactions in pre-industrial England

Detecting Deliberate Fertility Control in Pre-transitional Populations: Evidence from six German villages, 1766–1863

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