Marital fertility decline in The Hague (Netherlands) 1870-1909: An age-period-cohort analysis

Jona Schellekens, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Frans W.A. van Poppel, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

The view of fertility decline as an adjustment states that fertility control is an adjustment to economic and social change. The view of the decline as a process of innovation, on the other hand, states that the adoption of fertility control represents new behavior due to attitudinal change. Cohort replacement has been suggested as a mechanism for attitudinal change. Using birth history data from population registers this study shows that marital fertility decline in The Hague, Holland, is not a cohort effect. The simultaneity of the onset of family limitation and a rise in living standards suggests that marital fertility decline was an adjustment to economic and social change with attitudinal change possibly determining the pace of decline.