Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940This book offers an original interpretation of the history of falling fertilities in Britain between 1860 and 1940. It integrates the approaches of the social sciences and of demographic, feminist, and labour history with intellectual, social, and political history. It exposes the conceptual and statistical inadequacies of the orthodox picture of a national, unitary class-differential fertility decline, and presents an entirely new analysis of the famous 1911 fertility census of England and Wales. Surprising and important findings emerge concerning the principal methods of birth control: births were spaced from early on in marriage; and sexual abstinence by married couples was a far more significant practice than previously imagined. The author presents a new general approach to the study of fertility change, raising central issues concerning the relationship between history and social science. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Historiographical introduction a genealogy of approaches | 7 |
The construction and the study of the fertility decline in Britain social science and history | 9 |
The postwar study of fertility behaviour within the social sciences | 21 |
Historical studies of falling fertility in modern Britain | 45 |
Prognosis | 65 |
The professional model of social classes an intellectual history | 67 |
the fertility census of 1911 and the professional model of social classes | 69 |
Variation in composition of occupations by employment status | 322 |
Variance in fertility control within occupations | 330 |
Occupational differences in nuptiality | 335 |
Segregation of the sexes at work and in the home? | 350 |
multiple fertility declines | 360 |
How was fertility controlled? The spacing versus stopping debate and the culture of abstinence | 367 |
The incomplete and completed fertility of occupations compared | 371 |
Spacing stopping and the occupational evidence of incomplete fertility | 377 |
Social classification of occupations and the GRO in the nineteenth century | 76 |
The public health programme of the GRO | 85 |
The GRO in adversity 18801900 | 93 |
the evolutionary perspective | 107 |
The battle for control of the census | 114 |
the professional model occupation and skill | 120 |
Social classification and nineteenthcentury naturalistic social science | 129 |
The British Association Anthropometric Committee 187583 | 132 |
the aristocratic liberal meritocracy | 148 |
Gallons Great Chain | 165 |
Naturalistic social science liberalism and social policy at the turn of the century | 173 |
the professional model of social evolution | 180 |
The emergence of a social explanation of class inequalities among environmentalists 19011904 | 182 |
the public service professions and local government | 190 |
The influence of local government experience in the public health field | 197 |
The environmentalist response to hereditarian eugenics | 203 |
The environmentalist understanding of social classes | 207 |
The environmentalist scientific alternative to the hereditarians | 218 |
the scientific and social emancipation of medical environmentalism | 229 |
The emergence of the professional model as the official system of social classification 19051928 | 238 |
The role of the GRO in the battle for social welfare legislation | 246 |
Differential fertility and the social classification of occupations | 254 |
The theory of diffusion and the professional model of social classes | 262 |
The place of the GROs professional model within British social science and social thought | 271 |
the professional model and falling fertility | 280 |
A new analysis of the 1911 census occupational fertility data | 283 |
A test of the coherence of the professional model of classdifferential fertility decline | 285 |
The occupational fertility tables from the 1911 census | 287 |
The occupations of the 1911 census Fertility of Marriage Report | 290 |
The possible fertilitylongevity association | 293 |
Examination of the professional model of classdifferential fertility decline | 296 |
Conclusion | 305 |
Multiple fertility declines in Britain occupational variation in completed fertility and nuptiality | 310 |
The timing of marriage and the regulation of fertility 190111 | 382 |
a culture of sexual abstinence | 389 |
A reexamination of the historical evidence for and against the practice of attempted abstinence in Britain before 1940 | 398 |
An evaluation of the incidence of abortion in Britain before 1940 | 424 |
a variety of methods within a culture of abstinence | 432 |
Conceptions and refutations | 441 |
A general approach to fertility change and the history of falling fertilities in England and Wales | 443 |
childrearing gendered roles and identities | 447 |
The historical causes of falling fertility and nuptiality variation within the upper and middleclass milieu | 465 |
The gendered patriarchal labour market and the workingclass family | 481 |
Fertility and nuptiality variation between the communities of the working classes | 488 |
Fertility and married female employment | 503 |
The state the community and normative change in childhood dependency and fertility | 513 |
Conclusions | 525 |
Social class communities gender and nationalism in the study of fertility change | 533 |
multiple fertility declines and a developmental sequence | 534 |
languages social identities and communication communities | 546 |
a reappraisal of the role of the feminist movement | 558 |
Some possibilities for future research on changing fertility and nuptiality in England and Wales | 579 |
History and policy implications | 584 |
Social science and history | 593 |
Appendices | 603 |
Copy of the 1911 census household schedule | 604 |
Copy of sample pages from 1911 census Fertility of Marriage Report Part 2 Tables 30 and 35 respectively the tabulations for incomplete and complet... | 606 |
Male occupations rank ordered by completed fertility index AM2815 | 608 |
Male occupations Industrial Orders and employment status variables | 614 |
Male occupations rank ordered by incomplete fertility index | 620 |
Male occupations rank ordered by AM25PC20 the extent to which oldermarrying couples restrict fertility more than youngermarrying couples | 626 |
Female occupations rank ordered by incomplete fertility index AM2015 | 632 |
Estimate of the scale of effect of differing infant mortality levels on reported fertility after 75 years of marriage | 634 |
Bibliography | 636 |
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Common terms and phrases
age at marriage analysis anthropometric Appendix argued ARRG associated attempted abstinence birth control Britain census childrearing classification coitus interruptus completed fertility contraceptive couples cultural dealers decades demographic demographic transition differentials economic Edwardian Edwardian period effect empirical employers employment environmentalist eugenicists eugenics evidence falling fertility female feminism fertility behaviour fertility change fertility decline fertility levels Francis Galton Galton gender graded GRO's hereditarian important individuals industrial infant mortality influence intellectual interpretation interwar Karl Pearson labour aristocracy labour market liberal Marie Stopes marital fertility marriage married methods middle classes Newsholme nineteenth century nuptiality occupational fertility official patterns period political population position poverty practice professional model public health rates relations relationship relatively Report role scientific sexual sexual abstinence significant social classes social groups statistical status Stevenson Table textiles theory urban Victorian women workers working-class