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

Abstract

Gender has become a central concept in the social sciences as a marker of the social and cultural elaboration of sexual difference and of power relations. In some disciplines however, its relevance has been more difficult to establish; this is notably the case for historical demography, as research has only recently made use of the connection between gender and demographic processes.1 This is rather astonishing, since the discipline deals with a range of questions where gender is basic, such as life courses of men and women, family and extended family relations, sexuality, childrearing and contraception.The main purpose of this article is to show that the concept of gender is fundamental for historical demography and that it allows us to improve the explanatory power of the models used in this discipline. To begin with, I will identify some theoretical and methodological reasons that explain the late integration of gender in historical demography, and then focus on some current developments in the discipline that would help to overcome these blockages. This will be followed by two examples of the integration of a gender perspective in a central topic of historical demography, the so-called first demographic transition in Europe. Historians and demographers established that the secular decline of fertility in Europe occurred in two phases. A first decline in marital fertility took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries , and was realised through rudimentary birth control practices such as abstinence or withdrawal. There was a historically unprecedented shift from high numbers of children per family to fewer, but better nurtured and educated children. The elucidation of such a great social transformation has generated abundant research.2 The second fertility transition was initiated in the mid-1960s, thanks to the emergence and generalisation of modern contraceptive methods that could be controlled by women. Women's history and historical demography: mutual ignoranceWomen's history emerged as a discipline in the 1970s at the same time that historical demography was gaining importance, thanks particularly to the development of standardised and quantitative research procedures. Although its sources and methods could have provided part of the 'mass of information' that Virginia Woolf called for to fill in the gaps in the history of women -'at what age did she marry; how many children had C The author 2007. Journal compilation C Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Voluntary Associations and Net Fertility During the Swedish Demographic Transition

“…This effect, in turn, had macro-level consequences, and depending on the context and structure of the organisations, voluntary associations’ influence at the parish level affected individual-level fertility and shaped the pace of the fertility decline in Sweden. This is in line with the literature that argues that couples’ reproductive practices were dependent on how gendered social and cultural identities were formed within social networks (Junkka and Edvinsson 2016; Praz 2007; Szreter 1996; Warg 2002). However, this process was accompanied by other large economic and social structural changes.…”

“…In the free churches, masculinity was achieved through the roles of respectable fathers, husbands, and workers and by conforming to ideals of chastity and restraint (Hammar 1999; Pasture and Art 2012). Similarly, respectability has been shown to be important for masculinity and family limitation among men in Lutheran cantons in Switzerland during the historical fertility transition (Praz 2007, 2009). Although the use of contraceptives was not condoned within the free churches, family limitation through abstinence was promoted over alternatives (Hammar 1999; Kristenson 1997).…”

Gender and fertility within the free churches in the Sundsvall region, Sweden, 1860–1921

“…Studies of the relationship between class and reproductive practices have emphasized the role of how gender was embedded in a certain community for the pace of fertility decline (Szreter, 1993;Warg, 2002). In her study of the Swiss fertility decline, Praz (Praz, 2006a(Praz, , 2006b(Praz, , 2007(Praz, , 2007(Praz, , 2009 promotes the idea of gendered religious cultures. By arguing for and testing how differences in the construction of gender between the Protestant and Catholic cantons affected the pace of the fertility decline, Praz claims that merely living within a context where manliness, femaleness and sexuality were perceived and performed differently affected reproductive practices.…”