Fertility transition in England and Wales: continuity and change

Abstract

The focus of this paper is whether the transition from high to low fertility reveals continuity or discontinuity with the past. Our analyses of districts of England and Wales over time reveal an overall picture of continuity. Specifically, we show that (1) a substantial proportion of districts experienced pretransition variations in marital fertility that were so large that they are suggestive of deliberate fertility control; (2) the changes over time in the distributions of marital fertility levels and the relative importance of marital fertility levels to the determination of overall fertility levels were gradual and smooth; (3) the proportion of districts dominated by marital fertiliity variation, as opposed to nuptiality variation, increased gradually over time, and both marital fertility and nuptiality variations were present in all periods considered; and (4) there are important relationships between changes over time in marital fertility and socio-economic variables in periods both before and after the transition. The last conclusion is based on our estimated equations from the pooled cross-sectional, time-series data. Moreover, these estimated equations reveal relationships between changes in specific explanatory variables and changes in marital fertility that are very similar both before and after the onset of the transition.