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Demand and supply factors in the fertility transition: a county-level analysis of age-specific marital fertility in Sweden, 1880–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

MARTIN DRIBE
MARTIN DRIBE*
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History and Center for Economic Demography, Lund University, PO Box 7083, 220 07 Lund, Sweden, Martin.Dribe@ekh.lu.se
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Abstract

This article studies the importance of demand and supply factors in the Swedish fertility transition using county-level data and panel regressions. Fertility started to decline around 1880 when marital fertility began a continuous decline. A gradual diffusion of parity-specific control was important in this process. The fertility of the oldest age groups declined fastest, even though the decline started in all age groups over 25 at about the same time. This development was connected to broader socioeconomic and demographic processes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as mortality decline, urbanisation, industrialisation and expansion of education.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review of Economic History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 65 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © European Historical Economics Society 2008

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