Anthropological and economic perspectives on small family size on the Island of Pantelleria, Sicily

Abstract

Summary A two-level model is used to analyse socio-economic determinants of fertility at the community level. The survey and ethnographic data analysed were collected on the Island of Pantelleria, Sicily, during 1968–69 and 1974. Anthropological insights are used to account for cultural patterns as responses to specific historical and environmental circumstances which influence the central tendency of the distribution of family size toward small families. Micro-economic factors are then employed to investigate variance in individual household reproductive behaviour. The major cultural patterns favouring small family size include social and especially economic atomism coupled with the long-standing practice of partible inheritance of fragmented proprietary parcels, and strong cultural pressure to limit family size. When several relevant variables were included simultaneously in amultivariate analysis the major economic correlates of family size and the signs (in parentheses) of their relationship with completed family size are: mother's age at marriage (-), father's age at marriage (-), family wealth (-), mother's education (-), and ownership of consumer goods (+). These results are interpreted in terms of four alternative perspectives on fertility motivations. Of these, the results support the investment, household production and infant mortality perspectives, and do not support the ‘children as status goods’ perspective.