Toward the cumulation of demographic knowledge

Abstract

According to the widely-held theory of the demographic transition, increasing urbanization, education, and industrialization induce declining mortality and, with a lag, declining fertility. But is this generalization supported by the evidence? Empirical studies at Princeton's Office of Population Research (OPR) in the early 1960s raised doubts. A doctoral dissertation by William Leasure showed that the decline of fertility in Spain was not readily explained by this simple version of the demographic transition. Another study by John Knodel and Nathanial Iskandar found only a slight difference in the timing of the marital fertility decline in England and Hungary, despite very different levels of education, mortality, and industrialization. A similarly puzzling parallel in marital fertility decline occurred in Norway and Romania. These seeming contradictions led Ansley Coale in 1963 to initiate one of the most ambitious social science research inquiries ever undertaken, the European Fertility Project (EFP). The purpose of this project was to mine the extensive high quality historical demographic statistics of the countries of Europe to investigate fertility change by province from the predecline period through 1960. In the course of this project, Coale enlisted the collaboration of a number of demographers now of national and international reknown. Seven country studies have so far been published-in order of appearance, Portugal, by Massimo Livi-Bacci; Germany, by John Knodel; France, by Etienne van de Walle; Belgium, by Ron J. Lesthaeghe; Italy, also by Livi-Bacci; Russia, by Coale, Barbara A. Anderson, and Erna Harm; and Great Britain, by Michael S. Teitelbaum. In addition, the present volume's references list numerous articles and several dissertations resulting from the project, a number of them reporting on other areas of Europe than those covered in the monographs. The present volume is the result of a conference held in 1979. The aim, commendably, was not to summarize the country studies, but to attempt to develop generalizations, both descriptive and causal, drawing on data from all of the countries studied. The authors of the volume include either persons who were responsible for the country studies or significant others closely associated with EFP. Some outsiders partici-