Friedlander D, Okun B S
Department of Demography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
J Fam Hist. 1995;20(2):139-58. doi: 10.1177/036319909602000202.
An important line of research concerning historical fertility patterns in currently developed countries of Europe has concluded that, prior to the fertility transition, marital fertility was essentially constant over time, and deliberate fertility control was virtually unknown. It has been argued that variations over time in overall fertility were largely the consequence of variations in nuptiality. Other researchers have challenged these views and present evidence for the existence of a significant minority of fertility controllers in pretransition populations. In this article, we find support for this second view and argue that (1) there was significant, non-random variation in marital fertility over time, prior to the transition; (2) in many cases, this variation in marital fertility was large relative to contemporaneous variations in nuptiality; and (3) in a substantial minority of the cases, the variation over time in pretransition marital fertility was so large that it is suggestive of deliberate fertility control. Thus, our findings question the view of fertility transition as an innovation in deliberate marital fertility control. While most of our evidence is based on data from England and Wales, we find corroboration of our key results in other European data.
关于欧洲当前发达国家历史生育模式的一项重要研究得出结论，在生育转型之前，婚内生育率随时间基本保持不变，而且几乎不存在刻意的生育控制。有人认为，总体生育率随时间的变化很大程度上是结婚率变化的结果。其他研究人员对这些观点提出了质疑，并提供证据表明在转型前的人口中存在相当一部分进行生育控制的人。在本文中，我们支持第二种观点，并认为：（1）在转型之前，婚内生育率随时间存在显著的、非随机的变化；（2）在许多情况下，这种婚内生育率的变化相对于同期结婚率的变化而言很大；（3）在相当一部分案例中，转型前婚内生育率随时间的变化非常大，这表明存在刻意的生育控制。因此，我们的研究结果对将生育转型视为婚内刻意生育控制方面的一项创新这一观点提出了质疑。虽然我们的大部分证据基于英格兰和威尔士的数据，但我们在其他欧洲数据中也找到了对我们关键结果的佐证。
