Abstract
We use individual-level census data for England and Wales for the period 1851–1911 to investigate the interplay between social class and geographical context determining patterns of childbearing during the fertility transition. We also consider the effect of spatial mobility or lifetime migration on individual fertility behavior in the early phases of demographic modernization. Prior research on the fertility transition in England and Wales has demonstrated substantial variation in fertility levels and declines by different social groups; however, these findings were generally reported at a broad geographical level, disguising local variation and complicated by residential segregation along social class and occupational lines. Our findings confirm a clear pattern of widening social class differences in recent net fertility, providing strong support for the argument that belonging to a certain social group was an important determinant of early adoption of new reproductive behavior in marriage in England and Wales. However, a relatively constant effect of lower net fertility among long-distance migrants both before the transition and in the early phases of declining fertility indicates that life course migration patterns were most likely factor in explaining the differences in fertility operating through postponement of marriage and childbearing.
Highlights
The vast body of research on the determinants of the historical fertility transition has generally located its origins at the time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when contemporaries first started noticing profound changes in fertility in their society
We used the child-woman ratio (CWR) calculated from marriedspouse-present women and their children, to explore spatial patterns at the Registration Sub-District (RSD) level
Our results do not indicate a distinct change in the role of migration during the first decades of fertility transition, after 1881; instead, we find that the differences evident before that date remained largely intact across the three decades
Summary
The vast body of research on the determinants of the historical fertility transition has generally located its origins at the time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when contemporaries first started noticing profound changes in fertility in their society. The innovation perspective attributes falling fertility to the spread of new knowledge of means of contraception and attitudes, and the adjustment or adaptation perspective conceptualizes fertility decline as a response to a transformation of the economic and social environment. The latter perspective is closely related to the associated changes in the costs of having children and to the concept of the demand and supply of children (Easterlin and Crimmins 1985). The main evidence for this argument outlines the changes in economic organization during the nineteenth century, when the introduction of restrictions on children’s participation in the labor force and the enforcement of school attendance combined to increase the relative costs of having large families
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