Pretransition marital fertility variation over time: was there deliberate control in England?

An important line of research concerning historical fertility patterns in currently developed countries of Europe has concluded that, prior to the fertility transition, marital fertility was essentially constant over time, and deliberate fertility control was virtually unknown. It has been argued that variations over time in overall fertility were largely the consequence of variations in nuptiality. Other researchers have challenged these views and present evidence for the existence of a significant minority of fertility controllers in pretransition populations. In this article, we find support for this second view and argue that (1) there was significant, non-random variation in marital fertility over time, prior to the transition; (2) in many cases, this variation in marital fertility was large relative to contemporaneous variations in nuptiality; and (3) in a substantial minority of the cases, the variation over time in pretransition marital fertility was so large that it is suggestive of deliberate fertility control. Thus, our findings question the view of fertility transition as an innovation in deliberate marital fertility control. While most of our evidence is based on data from England and Wales, we find corroboration of our key results in other European data.     

The demographic transition then and now: processes, perspectives, and analyses

Fifty years have passed since the post-World War II development of demography as an academic field. During this time, one of the central focuses of research has been the study of demographic and fertility transitions. The authors review a selection of research developments and analytic issues that have appeared in the literature. After presenting, in roughly chronological order, the general development of this research work, they raise questions concerning theory and methodology. In doing so, they argue that some research directions have been overemphasized to the neglect of others.