Class Differences in Fertility

The reproduction of intelligence

“…Selection against high intelligence has been observed throughout most of the 20th century in Europe and the United States (Cattell, 1936(Cattell, , 1937Lynn & van Court 2004;Retherford & Sewell, 1988;van Court & Bean, 1985), where it was probably present since the beginning of the fertility transition in the 19th century (Notestein, 1936;Stevenson, 1920). We can estimate that without this selection effect the average intelligence in these countries today would be up to 5 points higher than it is-about as high as the average IQ in China today (Lynn & Vanhanen, 2006), where reproductive differentials still favored wealth, literacy and presumably intelligence in the early part of the 20th century (Lamson, 1935;Notestein, 1938).…”

Second Birth Fertility in Germany: Social Class, Gender, and the Role of Economic Uncertainty

“…Nevertheless, his framework generated clear and testable hypotheses regarding the association between class, economic security, and fertility behaviour. Notestein ( 1936 : p. 29) later elaborated on this perspective by asserting that class differences would “narrow or perhaps even reverse” if the fertility of the lower classes could be brought “more completely under control”.…”

“…In contrast to early classical demographic research (Brentano, 1910 ; Malthus, 1998 [1798]; Sallume & Notestein, 1932 ; Notestein, 1936 ), contemporary demography has devoted relatively little attention to the role of social class differences in fertility behaviour. Fertility researchers only rarely refer to this concept and instead tend to focus on differences in birth dynamics by education (e.g.…”

The sibsize revolution in an international context: Declining social disparities in the number of siblings in 26 countries

“…But has this revolution also taken place outside of the United States? While social disparities in family size were a prominent area of research in the first half of the 20 th century (Van Bavel 2010;Notestein 1936), the research focus in the second half shifted to family structures, such as out-of-wedlock births, divorce, and lone parenthood (Fahey 2017). To assess whether the sibsize revolution diagnosed by Fahey (2017) also took place outside of the United States, we examine disparities in sibship sizes by parental education in 26 countries across the 20 th century.…”