Rethinking the Fertility Transition in Rural Aragón (Spain) Using Height Data.

Francisco J. Marco-Gracia,Margarita López-Antón

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168338

Abstract

Based on an analysis of the life trajectories of 2510 conscripts and their families from a Spanish rural area in the period 1835–1977, this paper studies the development of the fertility transition in relation to height using bivariate analyses. The use of heights is an innovative perspective of delving into the fertility transition and social transformation entailed. The results confirm that the men with a low level of biological well-being (related to low socio-economic groups) were those who started to control their fertility, perhaps due to the effect that increased average family size had on their budget. The children of individuals who controlled their fertility were taller than the children of other families. Therefore, the children of parents who controlled their fertility experienced the largest intergenerational increase in height (approximately 50% higher). This increase could be due to the consequence of a greater investment in children (Becker’s hypothesis) or a greater availability of resources for the whole family (resource dilution hypothesis).

Highlights

The demographic transition refers to the process where the population of the majority of countries has shifted from a context of high fertility and mortality to a new state of low fertility and mortality [1]
This requires an in-depth analysis of the intergenerational transmission of height between fathers and sons periods and a comparison of whether there was any modification during the fertility transition
The objective is to determine the pioneers of the fertility transition and the effect that controlling fertility had on the biological well-being of the generation

Summary

Introduction

The demographic transition refers to the process where the population of the majority of countries has shifted from a context of high fertility and mortality to a new state of low fertility and mortality [1]. The first proposals to theorise the demographic transition were made in the first half of the twentieth century [2,3], and since thousands of studies have been conducted on this phenomenon (for an overview of the process: [4,5]). The fertility transition was the cause of the ageing of populations in several countries and has enabled married women nearly continuous access to the labour market, as their work is not interrupted by continuous childbirth and breastfeeding periods [7]. We cannot understand the evolution of western society in recent centuries without taking into account the process of demographic transition

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