differential fertility in sweden, 1930 and 1935-1936

Differential Fertility in Sweden, 1930 and 1935-1936Source: Population Index, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1940), pp. 11-13Published by: Office of Population ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3030798 .

Accessed: 09/12/2014 02:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Office of Population Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toPopulation Index.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 02:25:11 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=opr

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3030798?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Association. The occupations in this list have been arranged into broad groups similar to those of Edward's social-economic classification.

The inquiry on value or rent of the home, which proved itself highly useful after its introduction for nonfarm homes in 1930, will be extended to all homes in 1940. Inquiries on the type of dwelling and the possession of a radio set have been transferred to the hous- ing schedule.

Plans for the extensive tabulation of family data are being made for 1940. Tables on the number of persons Ln the household related by blood, marriage, or adoption will preserve continuity with earlier statistics. In addition, there will be tabulations of households, that is, groups of persons living together, with common housekeeping arrangements in the same living quarters. Private families again will be distinguished from quasi-family groups such as persons in large boarding houses, hotels, and institutions.

It has long been known that the enumeration of young children in the United States, as elsewhere, is less complete than that of the remainder of the population. The extent of the underenumeration is not definitely known. Thompson and Whelpton estimated it at about 4 per cent for white children under five years of age in 1930. A special effort is being made in 1940 to reduce this omission. The ne- nessity for counting infants isstressed both on the population schedule and in the instructions to the enumerators. The enumerator must ask in each household if there were any children born to any member of the household during the four months ending March 31, 1940. For each such child still living with the household, a special Infant Card must be filled out, in addition tothe entry made on the population schedule. The enumerator will receive two cents for each such card returned.

The Infant Card will have advantages beyond the improvement of the enumeration. Among the information secured will be place of birth. A check against the birth and infant death certificates will provide a measure of the completeness of birth registration as well as of the underenumeration of children under four months of age.

Months of preparation lie behind the schedules, instructions, and plans for the census this spring. Conferences have been held with experts in each field of inquiry; and the advice of many persons has been sought by correspondence. The needs of the many users of population data have been constantly kept in mind. The ultimate value of these efforts depends largely on the extent to which these users apply the data in studies and projects of social significance.

DIFFERENTIAL FERTILITY IN SWEDEN, 193 AND

1935-1936

The significance of the inverse association of fertility and social-economic status depends to a considerable extent on the permanency of the relationship. It is of-

ten suggested that this relation is a stage in the transition from re- latively unrestricted fertility to predominantly controlled fertility and, therefore, likely todisappear as fertility continues todecline.



12

The view that the common inverse relation is likely to be modified received its strongest support from data presented by Edin and Hutchinson for marital fertility of 1917-1930 in Stockholm, where birth rates were already very low (1(4):Title 149). Their data show- ed the usual inverse relation among industrial laborers, but in all higher status groups fertility varied directly with income. More- over, in the first decade of marriage, fertility varied directly with education even when income was held constant. Innes found a tendency toward a narrowing of class differences in England (5(l):Title 253), and a few studies in this country indicate that, for certain groups, marital fertility is at least as high in the upper income groups as in the next lower bracket (3(l):Title 195; 4(3):Title 1056; Title 221, this issue).

More recent and comprehensive information for Sweden is now available. Voll4me IX of the Swedish Census of 1930, Marriages and Number of Children, contains remarkable data on the marital fertility of many regional and social-economic groups (5(3):Title 1311). Table 4of this issue's Statistics Section has been compiled from this volume by Christopher Tietze. It shows the average number of children born per married couple cross-classified by duration of marriage and by occupation, income, and education of the husband. Similar data, with somewhat less detail, is given for the population of cities with 30,000 or more inhabitants.

The data for all Sweden show three striking relations. First, there was a clear-cut positive association of fertility and income in the higher-education groups of proprietors and salaried employees in nonagricultural pursuits. At lower educational levels, couples with incomes of 10,000 or more crowns were more fertile than those with incomes of between 6,000 and 10,000 crowns. Among wage-workers the usual negative association was the general rule.

Second, fertility tended to be positively correlated with education among the proprietors and salaried employees engaged in pro- fessional service. In industry and agriculture the negative association persisted at incomes below 6,000 crowns.

Third, wage-workers were more fertile than the least educated proprietors and salaried employees except among the better paid agricultural workers.

Comparable data are not available for Stockholm alone, but the census report does present somewhat less detailed information forthe population in cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants. Of the married couples in these cities, 40.7 per cent lived in Stockholm E-Id 19.3 per cent in Gbteborg. This material also is summarized in Table 4. The fertility of proprietors and salaried employees with incomes of 10,000 or more crowns is even more striking for the city group than for the country as a whole. It was higher than that of any other income group in all marriage durations under 15 years. However, fertility and income were not directly correlated for, in general, the lowest fertility was in the middle income group. The difference between this pattern and the positive association reported by Edin and Hutchinson for Stockholm may be due to the inclusion of smaller cities and toother differences in the groups considered. Among wage-



13

workers the traditional inverse relation of fertility and income was clear-cut, as it was in the Stockholm study.

The data just discussed were secured from the regular decennial census of 1930, which, as is the practice in Sweden, was based on transcripts from the parish registers instead of on direct enumeration. The national concern over declining birth rates led to a special and different type of census in 1935. The basic demographic data were extracted from the registers as usual, though in somewhat less detail. Then, in March, 1936, a20 per cent sample of the population was enumerated directly, the first such enumeration inSwedish history.

Volume VI of the report of this census, Number of Children Born and Children Dead in Marriages, was published in 1939 (Title 233, this issue). In it the number of children of marriages contracted after 1900 are tabulated by duration of marriage and age of wife at marriage for couples classified according to the husband's occupational and social group, income, and education; extent and type of the wife's gainful employment; and the husband's occupational shifts between marriage and the census enumeration.

The average number of children born was highest among agricultural laborers and next highest among owners and managers in agriculture. Then followed, substantially lower but scarcely differentia- ted, owners and managers in other pursuits, industrial laborers, and other laborers. Salaried employees were lowest of all. The fertility of women whose husbands changed occupation groups between marriage and the census was between that characteristic of the occupation left and that of the one entered. In such cases agricultural pursuits appeared to have greater influence on fertility than any other type of work. Women whose husbands had the least education had the most children, but those whose husbands had an intermediate education had the fewest children. The relations of income and fertility were generally the same as those shown by Dr. Tietze's table: higher fertility at the two extremes of the income classification than in the middle. Even in Sweden, where fertility has fallen to remarkably low levels and the standard pattern of differentials has been modified, the much discussed direct association of fertility and social-economic status has not become generally established.

POPULATION ANALYSIS BY ALFRED J. LOTKA

The work of Alfred J. Lotka is the central core of formal population analysis. Hitherto, those endeavoring to trace the systematic development

of his studies have had to search out an extensive list of fugitive periodical literature. These materials have been rounded out, put in order, and brought together in a single volume, Analyse demographiQue avec application particuliere .a 1iespece himaine. It was received too late for inclusion in this issue's bibliography and will be ab- stracted in the next number.

Successive chapters after the introduction treat! relations involving mortality and natality, relations involving fertility, the descendants of a population element, indices and measures of natural increase, relations involving fertility according to order of birth,



differential fertility in sweden, 1930 and 1935-1936

Documents