Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Szreter, Simon.

Publication

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Supplementary Content

Publisher description

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Holdings

Details

Description

xix, 704 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

• Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860-1940 offers an original interpretation of the history of falling fertilities. It integrates the approaches of the social sciences and of demographic, gender and labour history with intellectual, social and political history. Dr Szreter excavates the history and exposes the statistical inadequacy of the long-standing orthodoxy of a national, unitary class-differential fertility decline. A new analysis of the famous 1911 fertility census presents evidence for over 200 occupational categories, showing many diverse fertility regimes, differentiated by distinctively gendered labour markets and changing family roles. Surprising and important findings emerge: births were spaced from early in marriage; sexual abstinence by married couples was far more significant than previously imagined.
• A new general approach to the study of fertility change is proposed; also a new conception of the relationship between class, community and fertility change; and a new evaluation of the positive role of feminism. Fertility, class and gender continually raises central issues concerning the relationship between history and social science.
• Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860-1940 offers an original interpretation of the history of falling fertilities. It integrates the approaches of the social sciences and of demographic, gender and labour history with intellectual, social and political history. Dr Szreter excavates the history and exposes the statistical inadequacy of the long-standing orthodoxy of a national, unitary class-differential fertility decline.
• A new analysis of the famous 1911 fertility census presents evidence for over 200 occupational categories, showing many diverse fertility regimes, differentiated by distinctively gendered labour markets and changing family roles. Surprising and important findings emerge: births were spaced from early in marriage; sexual abstinence by married couples was far more significant than previously imagined. A new general approach to the study of fertility change is proposed; also a new conception of the relationship between class, community and fertility change; and a new evaluation of the positive role of feminism.
• Fertility, class and gender continually raises central issues concerning the relationship between history and social science.

Series Statement

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

Uniform Title

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

Subject

• Fertility, Human > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Fertility, Human > Great Britain > History > 20th century
• Social classes > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Social classes > Great Britain > History > 20th century
• Sex role > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Sex role > Great Britain > History > 20th century
• Bevolking
• Vruchtbaarheid
• Sociale klassen
• Sekserol
• Fécondité humaine > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 19e siècle
• Fécondité humaine > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 20e siècle
• Classes sociales > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 19e siècle
• Classes sociales > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 20e siècle
• Rôle selon le sexe > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 19e siècle
• Rôle selon le sexe > Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 20e siècle
• Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Great Britain > History > 20th century
• Great Britain > Population > History > 19th century
• Great Britain > Population > History > 20th century
• Grande-Bretagne > Population > Histoire > 19e siècle
• Grande-Bretagne > Histoire > 20e siècle
• History
• Great Britain

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 636-674) and index.

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.

ISBN

• 0521343437
• 9780521343435

LCCN

94042262

OCLC

• ocm31707671
• 31707671

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries