The influence of popular beliefs about childbirth on fertility patterns in mid-twentieth-century Netherlands
Titelübersetzung:Der Volksglauben über Geburten als Einflussfaktor auf Fruchtbarkeitsmuster in den Niederlanden Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts
Autor/in:
Bras, Hilde
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 39 (2014) 1, S 76-103
Inhalt: "Ever since the Princeton European Fertility Project on the decline of fertility, the question of how (changes in) cultural beliefs have influenced the historical fertility transition has been in the forefront of historical demographic research. Previous research has however mostly assessed the influence of religious denomination and has not examined the impact of wider beliefs or 'cultural life scripts'. On the basis of a folklore questionnaire, this article examines the occurrence, content, and geographical patterning of popular beliefs about childbearing in relation to fertility patterns in 1.022 rural Dutch communities during the nineteen forties. Beliefs in isolation and churching of women existed in almost half of all communities, particularly among Catholic populations, while fear of enchantment of infants was still alive in about a fifth of all municipalities. To be sure, such popular beliefs were rapidly vanishing and remnants were still found in isolated and strongly religious areas. A multivariate analysis shows that in communities where beliefs in churching and witchcraft still existed, birth rates were significantly higher. The study shows the salience of including popular beliefs in studies of fertility behavior and fertility decline. Moreover, it extends the concept of cultural life scripts beyond that of age norms to include prescriptions on social contexts, conducts, and practices surrounding important life passages." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:20. Jahrhundert; Netherlands; Geburtenrückgang; fertility; Katholik; birth; reproductive behavior; determinants; kulturelle Faktoren; declining birth rate; faith; Fruchtbarkeit; Glaube; cultural factors; Roman Catholic; generatives Verhalten; Ritual; Aberglaube; ritual; woman; Geburt; superstition; Religion; religion; gender-specific factors; Determinanten; twentieth century; Niederlande; cultural life script; popular beliefs
SSOAR Kategorie:Religionssoziologie, Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Bevölkerung
Life scripts and life realities: women in nineteenth-century Nijmegen
Titelübersetzung:Lebensskript und Lebenswirklichkeit: Frauen im Nimwegen des 19. Jahrhunderts
Autor/in:
Engelen, Theo
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 39 (2014) 1, S 104-112
Inhalt: "On average, more than one fifth of the 19th century Nijmegen brides were pregnant at the date of marriage. In a society where extramarital sexuality was explicitly forbidden, and where the success of marriage restriction depended on following that rule, this finding is remarkable. Obviously, the cultural life script that allowed sexuality only within marriage was not a script all inhabitants lived up to. A remarkable secondary finding is that the protestant population had a much higher proportion of bridal pregnancies than the Roman Catholic population, although both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic clergy strongly opposed sexual activities, unless within marriage. Therefore, when bridal pregnancy among Protestant couples was twice as high as among Catholics, this points either at a stricter control by the Catholic clergy, or at more deviance among Protestant youngsters. In any case, when studying cultural life scripts on sexuality, it is always important to note that it can be countered by human agency." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:Netherlands; 19. Jahrhundert; Protestant; Ehe; cultural factors; marriage; Roman Catholic; Katholik; Schwangerschaft; kulturelle Faktoren; sexuality; pregnancy; Protestant; Sexualität; woman; Lebensbedingungen; living conditions; nineteenth century; Niederlande; cultural life script; bridal pregnancy; extramarital sexuality
SSOAR Kategorie:Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Bevölkerung
Theories and heuristics: how best to approach the study of historic fertility declines?
Titelübersetzung:Theorien und Heuristiken: mit welcher Herangehensweise sollte man historische Geburtenrückgänge untersuchen?
Autor/in:
Szreter, Simon
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 36 (2011) 2, S 65-98
Inhalt: "This paper argues that a move away from a unifying but teleological framework for studying fertility declines can only been intellectually emancipating and is a necessary precondition for scientific advance. The study of change in human reproduction is an immensely complex and multi-faceted problem which requires the combination of both quantitative and qualitative forms of evidence and their respective methodologies of enquiry. The theoretical challenge is to construct an intellectually facilitating heuristic framework for synthesis of comparative, multidisciplinary study of the multiple fertility declines that have occurred, not to seek a replacement 'general narrative' for discredited demographic transition and modernization theories. Quantitative historical demography can only gain in its explanatory power by engaging with studies which also incorporate research into such qualitative aspects of gender as sex and power and which address a more historicist understanding of the role of culture by exploring its relationship with institutions, ideology and politics. It is argued that a number of recent, contextualized local and comparative studies of fertility declines are demonstrating how productively to combine quantitative and qualitative methods to explore rigorously these aspects of the history of fertility declines. Within the heuristic framework envisaged here, priorities for further research in the future would include exploring comparatively the relationship between reproductive change and communication communities with respect to the ideologically and politically-mediated issues of sex, religion, health, disease and education." (author's abstract)
Feminist perspectives on motherhood and reproduction
Titelübersetzung:Feministische Perspektiven zu Mutterschaft und Reproduktion
Autor/in:
Neyer, Gerda; Bernardi, Laura
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 36 (2011) 2, S 162-176
Inhalt: "Motherhood and reproduction have been at the core of the feminist discourse about women's rights ever since its onset. For the first and second feminist movements, the right to abortion and the public recognition of motherhood have been main issues in the discourse on reproduction. Since the last two decades of the 20th century, the potentials of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have opened up new venues of feminist discourse. In this paper the authors sketch the main feminist lines of argumentation regarding motherhood and reproduction since the 1970s, and they identify specific shifts in their recurrent issues. They argue that an essential contribution of feminism to the understanding of motherhood as a structuring category has been its insistence on the distinction between biological and social motherhood. Feminist discourse shows how ART has further decomposed biological motherhood and has altered the meaning of motherhood and reproduction. Feminist analysis maintains that despite the rhetoric of choice surrounding ART, these technologies have not increased women's reproductive freedom. The decomposition of biological motherhood, the medical, legal, and commercial development of reproduction, and the change in the social perception of motherhood have rather established new forms of control over female reproduction." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:Mutterschaft; motherhood; Frauenbewegung; women's movement; historische Entwicklung; historical development; Reproduktionsmedizin; reproductive medicine; Reproduktion; reproduction; Technologie; technology; Feminismus; feminism; Diskurs; discourse; künstliche Befruchtung; artificial insemination; soziale Wahrnehmung; social perception; Familienplanung; family planning; Genetik; genetics; Kinderzahl; number of children; Ambivalenz; ambivalence
SSOAR Kategorie:Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Technikfolgenabschätzung, Bevölkerung
Titelübersetzung:Individualisierung und Fertilität
Autor/in:
Ehrhardt, Jens; Kohli, Martin
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 36 (2011) 2, S 35-64
Inhalt: "In this paper, the authors discuss individualization theory as a parsimonious framework concept to describe and explain core points of fertility change in Western societies since the end of the 19th century. They emphasize two dimensions of individualization: firstly, the increase in status of the individual in cultural, social, economic and legal respects (human dignity); secondly, the increase in autonomy and freedom of choice. In contrast to other approaches based on individualization theory, the authors do not use the concept of self-realization in the sense of an increased orientation towards purely individual interests, not least because this concept has failed before the renewed rise in fertility that has recently been observed in some advanced societies. They discuss the relevance of these two dimensions of individualization in the context of the first transition and the 1960s with its declining fertility rates. Whereas the first demographic transition can be mainly explained by the rising status of children, which increased the costs of parenting and thus changed the interests of (potential) parents to have children, the transition in the 1960s resulted mainly from the rising status of women in education and the labor market. An important but hitherto neglected change was the increasing divorce rates, as the possibility to dissolve a marriage devalued the traditional gender contract of the breadwinner/ housewife model and decreased the willingness of women and men to invest in marriage and children. The contrast between the recently growing fertility rates in Sweden, France and the US with the continuously low fertility in the German-speaking countries can partly be seen as a result of different divorce regimes. Whereas the first group of countries has limited the entitlement to spousal support through alimonies, the second group has institutionalized extensive entitlements for mothers." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:Fruchtbarkeit; fertility; demographischer Übergang; demographic transition; historische Entwicklung; historical development; Individualisierung; individualization; Federal Republic of Germany; internationaler Vergleich; international comparison; Ehescheidung; divorce; Theorie; theory; westliche Welt; Western world; 19. Jahrhundert; nineteenth century; 20. Jahrhundert; twentieth century; Geburtenrückgang; declining birth rate; Bevölkerungsentwicklung; population development; woman; Bildung; education; Arbeitsmarkt; labor market; Geschlechterverhältnis; gender relations; Schweden; Sweden; Frankreich; France; USA; United States of America; Nordamerika; North America
SSOAR Kategorie:Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Bevölkerung