Stop! Go! What Can We Learn About Family Planning From Birth Timing in Settler South Africa, 1835-1950?

Abstract

We revisit the discussion on family limitation through stopping and spacing behavior before and during the fertility transition with a sample of 12,800 settler women's birth histories in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. Using cure models that allow us to separate those who stop childbearing from those who continue, we find no evidence of parity-specific spacing before the transition. We do find evidence of non-parity-based birth postponement before the transition. Increased stopping and parity-independent postponement characterized the beginning of the fertility transition, with increased parity-specific spacing following later in the transition phase.