Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2012
Abstract
New evidence from the Utah Population Database (updp) reveals that at the onset of the fertility transition, reproductive behavior was transmitted across generations—between women and their mothers, as well as between women and their husbands' family of origin. Age at marriage, age at last birth, and the number of children ever born are positively correlated in the data, most strongly among first-born daughters and among cohorts born later in the fertility transition. Intergenerational ties, including the presence of mothers and mothers-in-law, influenced the hazard of progressing to a next birth. The findings suggest that the practice of parity-dependent marital fertility control and inter-birth spacing behavior derived, in part, from the previous generation and that the potential for mothers and mothers-in-law to help in the rearing of children encouraged higher marital fertility.
Recommended Citation
Jennings, Julia; Sullivan, Allison R.; and Hacker, J. David, "Intergenerational Transmission of Reproductive Behavior during the Demographic Transition" (2012). Anthropology Faculty Scholarship. 6.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cas_anthro_scholar/6
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This article is made available under the Scholars Archive Terms of Use.
Comments
Publisher Acknowledgment:
This is the Publisher’s PDF of the following article made available by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press © 2012: Jennings JA, Sullivan AR and Hacker JD. (2012). Intergenerational Transmission of Reproductive Behavior during the Demographic Transition. Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 42(4): 543-569.