MPC Member Publications

This database contains a listing of population studies publications written by MPC Members. Anyone can add a publication by an MPC student, faculty, or staff member to this database; new citations will be reviewed and approved by MPC administrators.

Full Citation

Title: Fertility decline in the United States, 1850-1930: New evidence from complete-count datasets

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2019

ISSN: 0066-2062

DOI: 10.3917/adh.138.0143

Abstract: Extended Abstract Total fertility in the United States fell from 7.0 in 1835, one of the highest rates in the world, to 2.1 in 1935, one of the lowest (Coale and Zelnik 1963; Hacker 2003). In some respects, the U.S. fertility transition is an ideal case study for testing theories of fertility decline. The population was characterized by remarkable ethnic, racial, and religious diversity and large group differences in fertility. Geographic differences in fertility were also large, reflecting spatial differentials in industrialization, agriculture, urbanization, school attendance, women's labor force participation, population composition, religion, and occupational structure (Hacker 2016). Unfortunately, our understanding of the U.S. fertility transition has been limited by poor data. A national birth registration system was not established until 1933, after the end of the century-long fertility decline. IPUMS samples of the 1850-1940 censuses have helped address the lack of birth registration data, but low sample densities-most census samples are limited to 1% densities-have limited researchers' ability to analyze contextual factors and small population subgroups. A few researchers (e.g., Wanamaker 2012; Lahey 2014) have continued to rely on aggregate state-and county-level data published shortly after each census. Others have relied on retrospective children ever born data published in the 1900, 1910, and 1940 censuses for ever-married women (e.g. David and Danderson 1987; Jones and Tertlit 2008). Although these data can be used to measure trends in cohort fertility from the early nineteenth century, selection issues distort the timing of the decline and the measurement of independent variables for analysis. This paper leverages the analytical power of new IPUMS complete-count microdata databases of 1850, 1880, and the 1900-1940 decennial censuses (a joint ongoing project between the Minnesota Population Center and Ancestry.com) to reexamine the U.S. fertility transition. The dataset includes nearly 600 million individuals spanning the beginning of the decline in the middle of the nineteenth century to its temporary end with the baby boom in the late. A major advantage of these complete-count datasets is our ability to examine individual-level, couple-level and household-level correlates of fertility at or near the time of childbearing simultaneously with contextual variables outside the household, including a measure of patrilineal kin propinquity and …

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Authors: Hacker, David J; Roberts, Evan W

Periodical (Full): Annales de démographie historique

Issue: 2

Volume: n°138

Pages: 143

Countries:

IPUMS NHGIS NAPP IHIS ATUS Terrapop