Social Class and the Quantum and Tempo Effect of Fertility during the Fertility Decline

Francesco Scalone , Università di Bologna
Martin Dribe, Lund University
Edoardo Redivo, University of Bologna

Previous research has identified pronounced social class differences in fertility during the demographic transition. Upper- and middle-class women reduced their fertility earlier than farmers and lower-class women. This research has either been based on census data on number of children present in the household, children ever born, or duration analysis of birth intervals. A well-known limitation with the latter analysis is the inability to distinguish between quantum and tempo of childbearing, or the spacing and stopping in relation to the transition. Recently cure models have been implemented in demography to do make this distinction. They allow separate estimations of the risk of having another child, from the timing to that event. In this paper, we apply cure models to study class differences in marital fertility during the Swedish fertility transition. The analysis is made on a regional sample of birth histories with detailed information on occupation.

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 Presented in Session 25. Social Gradients in Mortality and Family Formation