Women's Work and European Fertility Patterns

Abstract

19th century theories relating womens work to fertility and illegitimacy rates are generally described. Edward Shorters 1973 article in which he argued that female emancipation led to increased rates of fertility in Western Europe at the end of the 18th century is reviewed. Shorter maintains that sexual emancipation of working-class women was brought on by industrial employment opportunities outside the home. Work led to sexual liberation by revolutionizing womens attitudes about themselves. Although Shorters interpretation is important in that he brings womens history into demographic history it is a misleading article. Increased illegitimacy rates are the only real evidence presented by Shorter for the hypothesis that womens attitudes and sexual behavior changed. This article critically examines Shorters hypothesis and then presents historical evidence about womens work experiences before and during industrialization. An alternative model to explain fertility changes which is based on historical evidence is offered. Factors contributing to the rise of European fertility rates which are accounted for in this model include declining mortality earlier and more marriages close spacing of births and growth in the population of propertyless workers. Fertility fell toward the end of the 19th century because of a decline in infant and child mortality and an increase in prosperity. It is argued that womens work in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was not liberating in any sense of the word.