Mormon Demographic History II: The Family Life Cycle and Natural Fertility

Abstract

The concept of the family life-cycle has been central to a substantial body of literature in both demography and family history.1 Because the information necessary for a full description of the family life-cycle is often difficult to obtain in most of the studies made, twentieth-century perioddata have been used. Glick has provided a somewhat longer time series with his description of the life-cycle of the American family beginning with cohorts born during the latter part of the nineteenth century, although he was forced to use a combination of data sets and various estimation techniques.2 Even with the longer time series generated by Glick, it is fair to say that the portrait of the American family life-cycle which begins with cohorts of women born during the 1880s reflects a 'modern' pattern. This modern pattern emerges from an analysis of a population in which the life-cycle was strongly influenced by declining and controlled fertility, improving levels of infant survival and increasing parental life expectancy. Evidence of the nature of the family life-cycle in the United States under earlier and very different, demographic conditions is not in general available.' It is difficult to estimate patterns of change in the family life-cycle for the entire American population during the nineteenth century, but it is feasible to secure estimates for segments of the American population. In this paper, for example, we shall deal largely with a frontier population. It is also a population which is unique in its high level of fertility, consequently providing us with an opportunity to examine the nature of the life-cycle under conditions of natural fertility. This paper is intended to achieve the following specific purposes: to extend the study of the family lifecycle to selected birth cohorts born in the United States during the nineteenth century (1800-69), arid to examine the features of the family life-cycle under conditions of high natural fertility.