The impact of socio-economic status on net fertility during the historical fertility decline: A comparative analysis of Canada, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and the USA

Abstract

Most previous work on the historical fertility transition has been macro-oriented, using aggregate data to examine economic correlates of demographic behaviour at regional or national levels, while much less has been done using micro data, and specifically looking at behavioural differentials among social groups. In this paper we study at the impact of socioeconomic status on net fertility during the fertility transition in five Northern American and European Countries (Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the USA). We use micro-level census data in 1900, containing information on number of children by age, occupation of the mother and father, place of residence and household context. The results show highly similar patterns across countries, with the elite and upper middle classes having considerably lower net fertility early in the transition. These patterns remain also after controlling for a range of individual and community-level fertility determinants and geographical unobserved heterogeneity.

Ready, Willing, and Able? Impediments to the Onset of Marital Fertility Decline in the United States

“…For example, the 10 % to 15 % higher marital fertility rates among women married to farmers relative to women married to men with professional, managerial, and sales occupations were approximately one-half of those observed in a recent analysis of the 1900 IPUMS sample (Dribe et al 2014a). The observed 8 % to 22 % higher marital fertility rates among Irish-, German-, and British-born couples relative to native-born couples were also about one-half of the differences observed in an analysis of the 1910 census (Morgan et al 1994).…”

“…Although evidence is limited, most investigators of the North American and European fertility declines have assumed that fertility was positively correlated with income, wealth, and socioeconomic status prior to the onset of the fertility transition (e.g., McInnis 1977; Steckel 1985) and negatively correlated after its onset (e.g., Becker and Lewis 1973), suggesting diverse and changing quantity-quality tradeoffs (Dribe et al 2014a). Evidence on when and how the income/wealth and fertility relationship changed in the United States is mixed.…”

Socio-economic status and fertility decline: Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

“…There is a widespread view in the literature that higher social status was associated with high fertility in pre-transitional populations, but that this situation reversed during, or even well before, the transition began (e.g., Livi-Bacci 1986; Skirbekk 2008; Clark and Cummins 2015). This change has been explained by the higher social groups acting as forerunners to the decline (Haines 1989a, 1992; Dribe et al 2014a). However, these generalizations are based on rather thin empirical grounds.…”

SRRD_2016_10 Kolk & Hällsten Demographic and Educational Success of Decendants.pdf (Version: 1)

“…Dribe et al 2014;Edin and Hutchinson 1935;Skirbekk 2008;Westoff 1954). Overall, research have found how a pre-industrial pattern of a positive gradient between SES and fertility transformed into a negative pattern after the industrial revolution, though this pattern is complicated in the past, and recently there is evidence of a reemergence of a partial positive association in contexts such as contemporary Sweden.…”

“…This shift towards investing in children, intentional or not, is an impetus both for further income growth and for social mobility. The degree to which the new fertility behavior is adopted can be important to explain the trajectory of families, not least due to socioeconomic differences in the adoption of low fertility (Dribe et al 2014;Livi-Bacci 1986), and since fertility behavior also is correlated across generations (Anderton et al 1987).…”