Stevenson J C, Everson P M, Crawford M H
Hum Biol. 1989 Feb;61(1):100-15.
The Anabaptist Amish, Hutterite and Mennonite peoples trace their origins to the Reformation. Although they share certain beliefs, such as adult baptism and the separation of church and state, each group is culturally unique. The Hutterite and Amish are highly fertile and their populations exhibit stable rates of growth. These demographic characteristics reflect communal living among the Hutterites and labor intensive farming practices among the Amish. The Mennonites are the most receptive Anabaptist group to outside socioeconomic influences and provide a demographic contrast to the more conservative Amish and Hutterites. Demographic data collected during a study of aging in Mennonite population samples from Goessel and Meridian, Kansas, 1980, and Henderson, Nebraska, 1981, formed the basis of a cohort analysis in order to assess fertility change over time. Completed family size has decreased significantly in all three communities since 1870. Since the early 1900's the mean age of the mother at first birth has fluctuated but the mean age of mother at the birth of the last child is decreasing significantly for the communities of Goessel and Henderson, thus effectively shortening the reproductive span. The pattern is somewhat different for Meridian, the most conservative of the three communities.
再洗礼派中的阿米什人、哈特派和门诺派的起源可追溯到宗教改革时期。尽管他们有一些共同的信仰，比如成人洗礼以及政教分离，但每个群体在文化上都独具特色。哈特派和阿米什人生育率很高，其人口呈现出稳定的增长速度。这些人口特征反映了哈特派的集体生活方式以及阿米什人劳动密集型的农耕方式。门诺派是再洗礼派中最容易接受外部社会经济影响的群体，与更为保守的阿米什人和哈特派在人口特征上形成了对比。1980年在堪萨斯州戈塞尔和子午线以及1981年在内布拉斯加州亨德森对门诺派人口样本进行老龄化研究期间收集的人口数据，构成了一项队列分析的基础，以便评估生育率随时间的变化。自1870年以来，这三个社区的家庭子女总数都显著减少。自20世纪初以来，初育时母亲的平均年龄有所波动，但对于戈塞尔和亨德森社区来说，生育最后一个孩子时母亲的平均年龄正在显著下降，从而有效地缩短了生育期。对于这三个社区中最保守的子午线社区来说情况略有不同。
