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36.2 - Fertility

Special Issue
Mixed Issue
HSR Vol. 36 (2011) No. 2: Special Issue: Fertility in the History of the 20th Century

Josef Ehmer, Jens Ehrhardt, Martin Kohli (Eds.): Fertility in the History of the 20th Century: Trends, Theories, Policies, Discourses.

In this special issue, a pluridisciplinary group of scholars discusses the complex interrelationship among fertility trends, population theories, policies and public discourses. Whereas the three former fields have been intensely studied in demography and its neighboring disciplines, there is still little work on population discourses, and even less that link them to the trends, theories and policies of population. The editors hope to stimulate the scientific debate on this topic, to raise awareness of these interconnections, and to contribute to more theoretical integration.

The special issue is organized in three sections: The first one discusses approaches to the study of fertility across historical periods. The second section concentrates on discourses and politics and their practical impact on reproductive behavior. The third section concentrates on recent trends in fertility, mainly in Europe and East Asia. This special issue originated at a conference in Berlin in January 2010 that was organized by the Working Group A Future with Children: Fertility and Societal Development. The Working Group was established in 2009 by the German Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and is funded by the Jacobs Foundation.