Social class differentials during fertility decline: England and Wales revisited.

Abstract

Fertility differentials during fertility decline can shed light on the process of fertility transition. Differentials across occupational or socio-economic groups have been studied for England and Wales to examine the pace of the adoption of fertility control across groups. Occupation of husband was used to create social-class aggregates. The conclusion has been that ‘higher’ social-class or status groups led the decline, while ‘lower’ social-class or status groups lagged, although not by many years. The use of occupational aggregations to create social classes, especially the eight social classes developed by T. H. C. Stevenson for the Census of 1911, has been criticized. This paper provides a re-analysis of the 1911 Census of Marriage and Fertility of England and Wales, using alternative aggregations and other measures of socio-economic well-being. It finds that these retrospective data seem quite usable for this task, and that alternative re-aggregations from the detailed occupational data in the Census strongly confirm the view that higher socio-economic status groups led the decline.