Social Class and the Fertility Transition: A Critical Comment on the Statistical Results Reported in Simon Szreter’s 'Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940'

22 Pages Posted: 16 Nov 2010

See all articles by Timothy W. Guinnane

Timothy W. Guinnane

Yale University - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Geoffrey Barnes

Yale University - Economic Growth Center

Date Written: November 15, 2010

Abstract

Simon Szreter’s book "Fertility, Class, and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940" argues that social and economic class fails to explain the cross-sectional differences in marital fertility as reported in the 1911 census of England and Wales. Szreter’s conclusion made the book immediately influential, and it remains so. This finding matters a great deal for debates about the causes of the European fertility decline of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For decades scholars have argued whether the main forces at work were ideational or social and economic. This note reports a simple re-analysis of Szreter’s own data, which suggests that social class does explain cross-sectional differences in English marital fertility in 1911.

Keywords: Fertility Transition, 1911 Census of England and Wales

JEL Classification: J13, N33

Suggested Citation

Guinnane, Timothy W. and Barnes, Geoffrey, Social Class and the Fertility Transition: A Critical Comment on the Statistical Results Reported in Simon Szreter’s 'Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940' (November 15, 2010). Yale University Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper No. 993, Yale Economics Department Working Paper No. 87, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1709594 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1709594

Timothy W. Guinnane (Contact Author)

Yale University - Department of Economics ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/site/timothywguinnanec/

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

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Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Geoffrey Barnes

Yale University - Economic Growth Center ( email )

Box 208269
New Haven, CT 06520-8269
United States

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