| Abstrakt: |
This article focuses on the decline of marital fertility in Prussia and presents information on influences on supply, demand and degree of control. In this paper researchers construct a new model of fertility determinants, in a form suitable for analysis of aggregate data. Researchers then estimate and test the model on a uniquely rich and detailed data set for Prussia, 1875 to 1910. From censuses researchers have constructed measures of income, female employment in nontraditional occupations, proportion Catholic, proportion Slavic, resources devoted to education and respective employment in banking, insurance, transportation and communications, church work, health care and mining. Actual fertility declined from 5.7 to 4.7 children per woman, on an average. Predicted fertility declined by less, from 5.6 to 4.9. Data for example, shows that the tiny increase in the average of Married Sex Ratio, the ratio of married men to married women, led to a tiny increase of less than .01 birth in completed marital fertility. Income had the greatest effect on natural fertility, increasing the number of births by 14. Breastfeeding and Infant Mortality have the "wrong" effects, but their contributions are smaller than that of income. |
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