Women's agency in Australia's first fertility transition: a debate revisited

The place of women's agency in the fertility transition of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is a contested one. Some argue that the transition was achieved mainly through male methods of contraception. Others, including many arguing from an Australian perspective, contend that women's agency in fertility decline was significant. In this article, the authors revisit the issue of women's agency in Australia. Drawing on a range of archival sources and scholarship, they seek to demonstrate that women in Australia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had access to contraception, albeit limited, and, where that failed, to abortion. The authors argue that the changing political and educational climate, which saw women gaining the vote in 1894 in South Australia and admission to secondary and higher education and paid work, provided the setting for women's changing status. Their increasing agency – an agency many women worked to secure – encouraged women to challenge many traditional practices.     

Paying the levy: Taxable wealth in Bridgetown,Barbados, 1680–1715

Differential fertility can be attributed to economic and cultural factors, but the family also plays an important role. Fertility behavior may be transmitted from parents to children through heritable dispositions or via socialization. Previous research has shown, however, that the expression of genetic effects depends on the interplay with the environment. In this article we take a long-term view and examine how the different mechanisms shifted over time and across social and local contexts on the basis of a large-scale database containing 100 thousand sibling pairs born between 1810 and 1870 in the Dutch province of Zeeland, a society undergoing demographic transition and industrialization. Corroborating earlier research, we find a significant increase in the expression of heritabilities and a fading of social influence for women born after the 1840s, who started their reproductive careers during the historical fertility decline in this region. Our study points out that the ‘social control’ of fertility was particularly reduced for women born in towns, women originating from the urban or rural laboring classes, and women from communities with a relatively liberal religious climate. Our findings are in line with research emphasizing the important role played by women in decision-making processes around childbearing, and could indicate the conditions that enhanced women's position in household bargaining during the historical fertility decline.     

Reproductive behavior and contraceptive practices in comparative perspective,Switzerland (1955–1970)

This paper focuses on marital birth control practices c. 1955–1970, i.e. before the era of widespread uniform adoption of modern contraceptives, in two nearby Swiss cities characterized by different religious cultures. It asks how responsibility for contraceptive practices was shared within the marital couple, whether it was the object of discussion between spouses, how the choice of a method of contraception was made and how religious culture affected these elements. This paper uses written sources reflecting medical authorities' views about birth control and 48 semi-structured interviews with elderly persons from the lower middle and working classes. The results point to three key conclusions. Firstly, the findings show a joint responsibility of both spouses for contraceptive practices. Secondly, the paper shows that religious culture plays a key role in the access to means of birth control. Specifically, Fribourg gynecologists were reluctant to prescribe modern methods. Thirdly, the results underline that a combination of methods are used throughout reproductive life, depending on the spouses' desire to have additional children and on men and women's individual attitudes toward birth control methods.     

The faces of death: regional differentiation in cause-specific mortality in the past

In mortality research, much attention has been paid to the strong geographical differentials in mortality levels and in modern mortality decline, as the analysis of this geographical differentiation might hold the key to explaining the determinants of mortality change. The use of historical cause-specific mortality data has proved a challenging, although very insightful, means to this end. The four contributions to this special issue focus on cause-specific mortality in the past, both to reassess older data using new insights and to challenge existing insights by using new data and methods. These papers, of which earlier versions were presented during the thirty-eighth Social Science History Association (SSHA) Meeting in Chicago, 21–24 November 2013, explore mortality at different stages of the life course, ranging from early infancy to old age. Moreover, each paper revolves around a different group of causes of death. Although the papers are in many ways rather different, together they demonstrate how different data, theoretical frameworks and methodologies can push the boundaries of research into the trends and determinants of historical mortality patterns.     

‘Two children to make ends meet’: the ideal family size,parental responsibilities and costs of children on two sides of the Iron Curtain during the post-war fertility decline

One of the major corollaries of the post-war fertility boom and decline is that two-child families became common across Europe after the 1970s. Despite the general agreement on the convergence of fertility trends, there is still little understanding of how this change took place in a comparative perspective of Western and Eastern Europe, which at that time were characterised by Cold War tensions of different ideological regimes. This study addresses this aspect by focusing on individual decisions around childbearing, child-rearing and family size. Based on 104 oral histories from Switzerland and Ukraine, this study illuminates that the urban setting provided parents with a similar set of constraints and opportunities, which eventually resulted in strikingly similar perceptions of the costs of childrearing on two sides of the Iron Curtain. Individuals’ motives to postpone first birth in Switzerland and second birth in Ukraine rested on a similar aspiration to invest in the well-being of children by ensuring material security for the family. This aim was increasingly achieved through female labour-force participation and adoption of modern contraception – the pill in Switzerland and abortion in Ukraine. While the timing of returning to the labour market and the share of women working after entering parenthood might have varied across the two contexts, a good mother became increasingly defined in both contexts in terms of providing emotionally and financially for her children. Although the introduction of modern birth control methods allowed couples to plan family size more carefully, it also made Swiss and Ukrainian women increasingly carry the major costs and actual burden of birth control. Altogether, this study challenges the common assumption around the persistence of strikingly different demographic realities in post-war Western and Eastern Europe by uncovering the mechanisms behind the stabilisation of family size around the two-child family ideal.     

‘Were women present at the demographic transition?’ A question revisited

In this contribution I argue that the future of historical demography has much to gain from the incorporation of women and gender into research on the (first) fertility decline in the Western world. Gender, as an explanatory concept, can help construct more complex models for fertility decline in which economic, social and cultural explanations can be connected and which are more sensitive to diversity, to historical context, and to contingency. By perceiving men and women as gendered identities who may have different interests in reproductive outcomes, we will not only restore the necessary agency to historical actors, but we will also see more clearly how many important questions on the fertility decline still remain unanswered.     

Parenthood,child-rearing and fertility in England, 1850–1914

Fertility declines across Europe and the Anglo-world have been explained as the result of reversals of intergenerational flows of wealth. According to this theory, the child was transformed from an economically-useful household asset to an emotionally-valued parental burden. This article is based on a comparative study of changing understandings of parenthood in three provincial English localities between 1850 and 1914. It works from the premise that in order to make sense of reproductive behaviour, it is essential to examine the meanings that men and women attached to childlessness, child-rearing and parenthood.

It is argued that there was not a universal shift that made children into burdens. New understandings of the duties of parenthood did develop, but these were founded on class-, gender- and place-specific interpretations. These encouraged a minority of fathers and mothers to believe that together they had the capacity to improve the lives of their sons and daughters in pioneering ways. Given that husbands and wives had distinct motives for avoiding rearing many children and that the discussion of reproduction was shrouded in silence, the dissemination and use of new ideals of family was crucial in enabling birth control to be thought about respectably within marriage.     

Domestic servants and diffusion of fertility control in Flanders, 1830–1930

This article uses a mixed method approach to analyse whether urban domestic service functioned as a diffusion channel in the fertility decline. The central hypothesis is that nineteenth century female, rural-born domestic servants were influenced by the reproductive habits of their middle and upper-class employers, who were vanguards in the adoption of family size limitation within marriage. This happened via a process of social learning, a mechanism of social influence in heterogeneous social networks. Female domestic servants are an excellent research population to study reproductive ideas and behaviour because they were large in number and had a particular social position in between the working and upper classes and in between rural and urban environments. This paper is unique in its use of qualitative information to analyse social fertility diffusion and in the incorporation of geographical mobility in the statistical part.     

True or false? Nineteenth-century Sápmi fertility in qualitative vs. demographic sources

There is limited knowledge about childbirth and childcare among Arctic indigenous peoples in historical times, and the Swedish Sami are no exception. The main aim of the present study is to investigate whether the Sami experienced fertility trends parallel to those of the rest of the population in the area and in Sweden as a whole. Digitized parish records offer a unique possibility to include comparisons from ethnic, cultural, geographical and long-term perspectives. The present study compares the statements about fertility and childcare provided by qualitative sources with data from quantitative demographic investigations. This comparison reveals a contrasting picture, from which it is evident that contemporary observers’ impressions of the Sami and their childbirths were somewhat inaccurate. Opposite to what the qualitative sources claimed Sami fertility was higher than the national average rates. Moreover, crude birth rates were high and the average number of children in families exceeded what was generally claimed. We can conclude that the statements made by clergy, physicians and travelers concerning childbirth among the Sami did not correspond particularly well with the demographic reality.     

Abandoned and illegitimate,a double mortality penalty? Mortality of illegitimate infants in the foundling hospital of Madrid,La Inclusa (1890–1935)

This paper examines the existence of a mortality penalty for illegitimate abandoned infants in the Foundling Hospital of Madrid, La Inclusa, during the period 1890–1935, in the context of the mortality experience of the city. A rich dataset on the life histories of all infants abandoned in the city of Madrid (almost 60,000 children), nominally linked to births, has allowed the study of the determinants of mortality of foundlings, newborns in the city, and the study of the determinants of abandonment. Contrary to previous findings, our results for La Inclusa show no evidence of an illegitimacy penalty among foundlings and, in some cases, show even better prospects for them. However, this situation did not reflect the circumstances of the city, as illegitimate infants were both more likely to suffer a neonatal death and to be abandoned. The explanation proposed in this paper is that the health of infants born of wedded couples that ended up resorting to abandonment was possibly poorer than that of those born of single or migrant mothers, as the situation triggering abandonment meant that infants were under very hard conditions, possibly worse than those single women faced in the event of a pregnancy.     

Attributions of Negative Partner Behavior by Men Who Physically Abuse Their Partners

This study investigated the association between family violence and the attributions made for negative partner behaviors in an Australian context. Three groups of men were classified as physically violent (in counseling), non-physically violent (in counseling), and non-physically violent (in the community). The Relationship Attribution Measure was used to assess the attributional dependent variables of locus, stability, globality, intent, motivation, and blame. Significant differences between violent and nonviolent men on each of the attributional dimensions were found. Physically violent men were more likely than non-physically violent men (counseling) to attribute the negative behavior of their partners to unchangeable, intentional rather than unintentional, selfishly motivated, and blameworthy causes. However, these differences disappeared when marital satisfaction was controlled. The implications of this work for domestic violence intervention programs are discussed, along with a number of methodological issues and directions for future research.     

Urban infant mortality and religion at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth century: the case of Ekaterinburg,Russia

Modern demographers analyse regional and other infant mortality differentials as important factors behind the current life expectancy of Russian citizens. Historically, however, the Russian Empire is simply displayed as one block with high infant mortality rates. Also with respect to cultural background factors, Russia is often perceived as religiously homogeneous with the Orthodox Church dominating the country. In reality, Russia has a long history of coexisting religious traditions. This includes both provinces with a majority of Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists or shamanistic populations as well as territories characterized by religious diversity and significant minority religions. Our project studies minority religious groups in the Urals, a province by the Ural Mountains stretching into Asia. While no territory can claim to be truly representative of this mega-country, we believe that this centrally located province is well suited to show some of the Russian variety, including differential infant mortality among the followers of minority religions, which is the topic of this article. We employ church record microdata to study Catholics, Jews and Old Believers in the main metal-producing city of Ekaterinburg.     

人体血液中吗啡的定性定量分析

目的　建立人体血液中吗啡的定性定量分析方法。方法　经过丙酸酐衍生化法 ,利用气质联用和气相色谱氮磷检测器对吗啡丙酸酐衍生物进行定性定量分析。结果　确定了人体血液中吗啡的气质联用和气相色谱氮磷检测器定性定量分析的色谱条件、吗啡气相色谱氮磷检测器定量分析的线性范围及吗啡最小检出量0 1ng。结论　该方法定性定量结果准确、可靠 ,定量线性范围可满足实际办案需要 ,为吸食鸦片类毒品人群血液中吗啡的定性定量分析提供了分析方法和依据     

The effects of marital status on adult female homicides in the United States

With data from the 1992 Mortality Detail File, we examine the effects of marital status on female homicide victimization in the United States. Multivariate logistic regression was fitted to all female homicide deaths occuring in 1992. Results indicate that, controlling for race, education, nativity, city size, region of the country, occupation, age, day of the week, and month of the year, divorced females were 55.3% more likely to be homicide victims than married females. Notably, single women did not differ from married women with respect to homicide risk. Finally, widowed women were significantly less likely to be homicide victims than married women. The results suggest a complicated relationship between marital status and female homicide victimization.     

A stem-family society without the stem-family ideology? The case of eighteenth-century Poland1

This paper mobilizes historical census microdata and quantitative methods to answer a seemingly qualitative question of whether the stem-family organization, profoundly described in sociological and anthropological literature, existed in historical western Poland. The paper’s narrative takes a threefold argumentation format, each step relying on different methodologies. First, using household registers data and basic tools of historical demography we come to the point where a conjectural hypothesis of stem-family prevalence in the territories in question seems to be necessarily rejected. However, the vivid prevalence of the stem family is brought back to the fore in the second step, when empirical data are combined with more sophisticated statistical tools (computer microsimulation of kin sets). Finally, the latter observation is problematized in light of the historical contextual information, which altogether makes the incidence of stem-family organization in the region unthinkable given the existing socio-cultural and political-economic framework. We close with a contemplation of the limits of quantitative approaches to concerns over historical family systems, and with a discussion of the extent to which – given this apparent conundrum – our findings may illuminate existing models of historical family systems.     

Women’s age at last childbearing and its determinants: a case study of Antwerp (Flanders,Belgium) on the basis of the multi-source COR* historical sample

Declines in the age at last childbearing in the first demographic transition reflected conscious changes in fertility behaviour during that period, in particular efforts to limit the total number of children. Such fertility limitation behaviour was the net result of ‘cultural causal factors’ on the one hand and ‘structural and economic causal factors’ on the other hand. This paper analyses the evolution of women’s age at last childbearing by reconstructing women’s life histories based on data from the multi-source COR* historical sample for Antwerp in the period 1846–1920. The paper also assesses the causes of this evolution through a number of theoretically grounded structural/economic, cultural and life course determinants, placing these concepts in a macro-micro framework of methodological individualism. For this purpose, in the first place a Kaplan-Meier analysis is applied to 10-year birth cohorts; a proportional hazard model is also applied to three different birth cohorts (mothers born before 1840; born in the period 1840–1859; and born after 1860); and a range of cultural and life course determinants are analysed, including women’s literacy status, marriage witness characteristics, the seasonality of marriages and births, and birth histories. The analysis confirms the decline in the age at last childbearing especially in the late cohort, and also highlights inter-cohort differences caused by cultural and life course determinants.