Fertility and Contraception during the Demographic Transition: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Abstract

Demographic, cultural, and oral-history approaches to the study of falling fertility in nineteenth-and twentieth-century France, Canada, Britain, Holland, Norway, and Finland confirm the importance of the persistent usage of “traditional” methods of birth control—such as coitus interruptus, abortion, and forms of periodic abstinence—throughout the period when fertility fell, though fertility fell in each case at a different point in time. These studies also use qualitative evidence that provides insight into the reasons for contraceptive preference, thereby combining the history of changing sexualities with the analysis of demographic change.

Four Swiss Villages, 1860–1930: Putting Gender back into Historical Demography

“…Historical demographers are beginning to take this cultural aspect into account and have turned to the findings and methods of anthropology and cultural history, as well as to new sources (texts, or oral or written testimonies of individuals) and qualitative methods (for example, discourse analysis or interviews). 21 Kate Fischer's oral history study of the fertility decline among the British working class provides an interesting example. She challenges the previous, but untested, assertion that women were the leading force in the adoption of birth control during the first fertility transition because of their greater interest in the matter.…”

Women as Agents in Fertility Decision‐making: Australia, 1870–1910

“…While authors have concluded that withdrawal and abstinence were the main methods used in England and Western Europe during the fertility transition, the evidence on which this conclusion is based is questionable (e.g. McLaren 1990;Szreter et al 2003). For instance, Szreter et al (2003) state that withdrawal was probably the main contraceptive technique used in French marriages in the early twentieth century.…”

“…Major studies of contraceptive methods used during the West's historical fertility decline have dismissed evidence that women used female‐controlled methods to limit their fertility (McLaren ; Szreter ; Szreter et al. ). Where reference was made to the means of fertility control, male‐controlled methods, especially withdrawal and abstinence, better fitted a male‐led theoretical perspective, and evidence has been advanced to support this conclusion.…”

“…By inference, the Western fertility transition has been seen as being necessarily a result of men wishing to exercise control over fertility for mainly economic reasons and women being the passive beneficiaries rather than active agents of change. Major studies of contraceptive methods used during the West's historical fertility decline have dismissed evidence that women used female-controlled methods to limit their fertility (McLaren 1990;Szreter 1996;Szreter et al 2003). Where reference was made to the means of fertility control, male-controlled methods, especially withdrawal and abstinence, better fitted a male-led theoretical perspective, and evidence has been advanced to support this conclusion.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2003

“…Methods of birth control pre‐dating the contraceptive pill are the subject of a number of country‐specific analyses which appeared in a special edition of the Journal of Interdisciplinary History . This special issue begins with a fascinating introduction by Szreter and his co‐authors, who comment on the remarkable persistence of ‘traditional’, non‐industrial methods of contraception even when a wide range of ‘modern’ methods had become widely available. They attribute this to the varying ideologies of sexual and gender relations within different countries and their diverse social groups.…”