Heterogeneity in ‘High Fertility’ Societies. Insights From Compositional Demography

Hilde Bras

doi:10.51964/hlcs9577

Abstract

Demographic transition theory has been conducive to a rather dichotomous view of global fertility: traditional versus modern, high versus low fertility. The knowledge that high fertility could be achieved by subpopulations with different characteristics and reproductive behaviors somehow vanished from (historical) demographers' attention. This study unpacks heterogeneity in a 'high fertility' society, i.e. 19th-century Zeeland, the Netherlands. Sequence and cluster analysis were employed to distinguish groups with disparate reproductive trajectories with data from Genlias/LINKS including 15,014 full birth histories and 87,204 observed live births over the period 1811–1911. Multilevel binomial logistic regression models of membership of the two discerned high fertility subgroups were then estimated. The 'Traditional 1' subpopulation, with 10.5 children per woman on average, was composed of skilled, unskilled, and farm workers living in rural areas. Couples married early and were characterized by large spousal age gaps. The 'Traditional 2' subpopulation had on average 7.2 children per woman, more often lived in towns, married significantly later, and had more equal gender relations. Compositional demography, revealing subpopulations with divergent cultures of marital self-restraint and reproductive management, not only nuances previous (historical) demographic findings, but may well offer more tools to develop family planning and reproductive health policies than the demographic transition model does.

Highlights

In the Western world, as well as in large swaths of Asia, fertility has fallen drastically since the 19th century
We examine the association of high fertility birth histories with a number of independent variables that could be collected from the sources
From a previous study we know that they had an extremely long reproductive phase and a very short stopping phase. Completed fertility in this subgroup is very high, with 10.5 children on average. What characterizes this high fertility subgroup in terms of its geographic and social context, reproductive strategies, and gender relations? Model 1 shows that 'Traditional 1' families differed from other couples in that the wives were significantly more often born in the early 19th century (1811–1839) and less often in the youngest cohort (1860–1866) than others

Summary

Introduction

In the Western world, as well as in large swaths of Asia, fertility has fallen drastically since the 19th century. There are still countries with persistent patterns of high fertility, defined as five or more births per woman over their reproductive career (World Bank, 2010). Most of these are located in subSaharan Africa. In landlocked Niger in Western Africa, for instance, women bear on average 7.4 children, a level of high fertility which has remained stable for decades. As there are no signs of family limitation at higher parities, the fertility transition — in its conventional definition — has not yet begun in Niger. Recent research reveals that there are groups that have started to postpone first childbearing, leading to compression of fertility at higher ages (Spoorenberg & Maga, 2018)

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