Fertility, class, and gender in Britain, 1860-1940 / Simon Szreter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Szreter, Simon, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in population, economy, and society in past time ; 27.

Cambridge studies in population, economy, and society in past time ; 27

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fertility, Human--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Fertility, Human.

Fertility, Human--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Social classes--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Social classes.

Social classes--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Sex role--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Sex role.

Sex role--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Great Britain--Population--History--19th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Population--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 704 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Fertility, Class & Gender in Britain, 1860-1940

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book offers an original interpretation of the history of falling fertilities in Britain between 1860 and 1940. It integrates the approaches of the social sciences and of demographic, feminist, and labour history with intellectual, social, and political history. It exposes the conceptual and statistical inadequacies of the orthodox picture of a national, unitary class-differential fertility decline, and presents an entirely new analysis of the famous 1911 fertility census of England and Wales. Surprising and important findings emerge concerning the principal methods of birth control: births were spaced from early on in marriage; and sexual abstinence by married couples was a far more significant practice than previously imagined. The author presents a new general approach to the study of fertility change, raising central issues concerning the relationship between history and social science.

Contents:

1. The construction and the study of the fertility decline in Britain: social science and history

2. Social classification of occupations and the GRO in the nineteenth century

3. Social classification and nineteenth-century naturalistic social science

4. The emergence of a social explanation of class inequalities among environmentalists, 1901-1904

5. The emergence of the professional model as the official system of social classification, 1905-1928

6. A test of the coherence of the professional model of class-differential fertility decline

7. Multiple fertility declines in Britain: occupational variation in completed fertility and nuptiality

8. How was fertility controlled? The spacing versus stopping debate and the culture of abstinence

9. A general approach to fertility change and the history of falling fertilities in England and Wales

10. Social class, communities, gender and nationalism in the study of fertility change.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 636-674) and index.

ISBN:

0-511-58224-2

0-511-00103-7