Differential Fertility in the United States: 1900 to 1952

Abstract

-' A summary of this paper was prepared for presentation at the World Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population meeting in Rome, Italy, August 31 to September 10, 1954. 1 See, e.g., Clyde V. Kiser, and Differentials in the United States, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 47, No. 257 (March, 1952), pp. 25-48, especially pp. 37-48; Robert M. Dinkel, Occupation and Fertility in the United States, American Sociological Review, 17, No. 2 (April, 1952), pp. 178-183; Evelyn M. Kitagawa, Fertility in Chicago, 19201940, American Journal of Sociology, LVIII, No. 5 (March, 1953), pp. 481-492; T. J. Woofter, Trends in Rural and Urban Fertility Rates, Rural Sociology, 13, No. 1 (March, 1948), pp. 3-9; X. Sallume and Frank W. Notestein, Trends in the Size of Families Completed Prior to 1910 in Various Social Classes, American Journal of Sociology, 33, No. 3 (November, 1932), pp. 398408; Clyde V. Kiser, Trends in the Fertility of Social Classes from 1900 to 1910, Human Biology, 5, No. 2 (May, 1933), pp. 256-273; Frank Lorimer and Frederick Osborn, Dynamics of Population, New York: Macmillan Co., 1934. 2 John W. Innes, Class Fertility in England and Wales, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938; David V. Glass and E. Grebenik, The Family Census: A Preliminary Report, in Papers of the Royal Commission on Population, II, London, 1950; Dennis Wrong, in Class Fertility Differentials in Western Nations, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University (in preparation). For other references to American and British studies, see bibliography in Charles F. Westoff, The Changing Focus of Differential Fertility Research: Social Mobility Hypothesis, Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, January, 1953, xxx1, No. 1, pp. 24-38. For a more extensive list of international references and summary, see United Nations, Population Commission: Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, New York: United Nations Publication, 1953 (especially Chap. V and bibliography). general consensus of these studies is that urban-rural, occupational, and other group differences in fertility widened in the latter half of the nineteenth century, presumably as a result of an uneven spread and acceptance of contraceptive knowledge and practices. Developments since the turn of the century, however, have been more complex. Studies within the past twenty years or so in the United States have repeatedly reported evidence of exceptions to the general rule of an inverse relation of fertility to socio-economic status,3 that is, fertility in the middle groups being the same or lower than that of the higher classes. This has been interpreted by many as a consequence of the democratization of birth control usage and as the foreshadowing of a general contraction of group fertility differences. hypothesis adduced to account for this development prior to 1940 is that this contraction was primarily a function of a more rapid rate of decrease in the fertility of the lower socio-economic groups. Since 1940, the contractions that have been observed are accredited to higher rates of increase among the higher socioeconomic groups.4 hypothesis that differences in fertility between urban and rural areas in the United States have been in the process of contracting has been seriously questioned by