Antebellum Southern White Fertility: A Demographic and Economic Analysis

The Journal of Economic History

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 1980, Pages 331-350

  Steckel, Richard H ^a  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS; DEMOGRAPHY; DEVELOPED COUNTRY; DIFFERENTIAL FERTILITY; FERTILITY; HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY; HISTORY OF MEDICINE; NORTH AMERICA; NORTHERN AMERICA; POPULATION; POPULATION DYNAMICS; SOCIOLOGY; UNITED STATES; WESTERN HEMISPHERE;

AMERICAS; DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS; DEMOGRAPHY; DEVELOPED COUNTRIES; DIFFERENTIAL FERTILITY; FERTILITY; HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY; NORTH AMERICA; NORTHERN AMERICA; POPULATION; POPULATION DYNAMICS; SOCIAL SCIENCES; UNITED STATES;

DEMOGRAPHY; HISTORY OF MEDICINE, MODERN; STATISTICS; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0019225198     PISSN: 00220507     EISSN: 14716372     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S002205070010823X     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Child-woman ratios by time period and region are given in Richard A. Easterlin, “Does Human Fertility Adjust to the Environment?,” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 61 (May 1971), 402–03.
2. Jim Potter, “The Growth of Population in America, 1700-1860,” in David V. Glass and David E. C. Eversley, eds., Population in History (Chicago, 1965), p. 678.
3. The argument is discussed by Yasukichi Yasuba, Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800–1860 (Baltimore, 1961), pp. 137-58;
4. Colin Forster and G.S.L. Tucker, Economic Opportunity and White American Fertility Ratios, 1800–1860 (New Haven, 1972), pp. 87–91.
5. Easterlin, “Does Human Fertility,” pp. 402–03.
6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975). Series A 57–72.
7. Forster and Tucker, Economic Opportunity, pp. 90–91.
8. Yasuba, Birth Rates; Easterlin, “Does Human Fertility”; Richard A. Easterlin, “Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Research Results,” Journal of American History, 63 (Dec. 1976), 600-14;
9. Richard A. Easterlin, “Population Change and Farm Settlement in the Northern United States,” this journal, 36 (Mar. 1976), 45-75;
10. Richard A. Easterlin, George Alter, and Gretchen A. Condran, “Farms and Farm Families in Old and New Areas: The - Northern States in 1860,” in Tamara K. Hareven and Maris A. Vinovskis, eds., Family and Population in Nineteenth Century America (Princeton, 1978), pp. 22-84;
11. Forster and Tucker, Economic Opportunity:; Don R. Leet, “The Determinants of the Fertility Transition in Antebellum Ohio,” this journal, 36 (June 1976), 359-78;
12. R. Marvin Mclnnis, “Childbearing and Land Availability: Some Evidence from Individual Household Data,” in Ronald Demos Lee, ed., Population Patterns in the Past. (New York, 1977), pp. 201–27.
13. Mclnnis, “Childbearing and Land Availability,” and Easterlin et al., “Farms and Farm Families.”
14. Richard H. Steckel, The Economics of U.S. Slave and Southern White Fertility (New York, 1980), pp. 132–33.
15. D. Wright, The History and Growth of the United States Census (Washington, D.C., 1900).
16. Steckel, Economics; pp. 69–74.
17. Donald J. Bogue and James A. Palmore, “Some Empirical and Analytic Relations Among Demographic Fertility Measures, with Regression Models for Fertility Estimation,” Demography, 1 (1964), 316-38;
18. Barry S. Tuchfeld, Leverett L. Guess, and Donald W. Hastings, “The Bogue-Palmore Technique for Estimating Direct Fertility Measures from Indirect Indicators as Applied to Tennessee Counties, 1960-1970,” Demography, 11 (May 1974), 195-205;
19. G.S.L. Tucker, “A Note on the Reliability of Fertility Ratios,” Australian Economic History Review, 2 (Sept. 1974), 160–67.
20. A more complete discussion of the biases can be found in Steckel, Economics, pp; 96–99.
21. The measure is discussed in James Trussell and Richard Steckel, “The Age of Slaves at Menarche and Their first Birth,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 8 (Winter 1978), 477–505.
22. Louis Henry, Anciennes families genevoises, Cahier No. 26 (Paris, 1956), pp. 87-93;
23. Edward A. Wrigley, “Family Limitation in Pre-Industrial England,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 20 (Apr. 1966), 82–109.
24. Jacques Henripin, La Population canadienne au debut du X VIIe siécle, Cahier No. 22 (Paris, 1954), p. 84.
25. Joseph W. Eaton and Albert J. Mayer, ‘The Social Biology of Very High Fertility Among the Hutterites: The Demography of a Unique Population,” Human Biology, 25 (Sept. 1953), 236;
26. T. E. Smith, “The Cocos-Keeling Islands: A Demographic Laboratory,” Population Studies, 14 (Mar. 1961), 111;
27. Pierre Goubert, “Legitimate Fecundity and Infant Mortality in France During the Eighteenth Century: A Comparison,” Daedalus, 97 (Spring 1968), 595.
28. The role of search in marriage behavior is discussed by Gary S. Becker, “A Theory of Marriage: Part 11,” Journal of Political Economy, 82 (Mar.-Apr. 1974), 11–26.
29. Ansley J. Coale and Melvin Zelnik, New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the United States (Princeton, 1963), pp. 33–35.
30. Wilson H. Grabill, Clyde V. Kiser, and Pascal K. Whelpton, The Fertility of American Women (New York, 1958), p. 106;
31. Tamara K. Hareven and Maris A. Vinovskis, “Marital Fertility, Ethnicity, and Occupation in Urban Families: An Analysis of South Boston and the South End in 1880,” Journal of Social History, 8 (Spring 1975), 69–93.
32. H. Yuan T’ien, “A Demographic Aspect of Interstate Variations in American Fertility, 1800-1860,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 37 (Jan. 1959), 49-59;
33. Forster and Tucker, Economic Opportunity, p. 64;
34. Leet, “Determinants,” 371–75.
35. George J. Stigler, The Organization of Industry (Homewood, IL, 1968), pp. 29–38.
36. The number of seats for each denomination is given in U.S. Census Office, Statistics of the United States in 1860, pp. 352–496.
37. Sample values of the index range from.180 to.596.
38. A logistic probability model was chosen for estimation purposes because the dependent variable is dichotomous. The model is discussed in Steckel, Economics, pp. 135–39.
39. S. James Press, “Univariate and Multivariate Log-Linear and Logistic. Models,” R-1306-EDA/NiH (Santa Monica, 1973), pp. 3–9.
40. United Nations, “Foetal, Infant, and Early Childhood Mortality,” vol. 2, Biological, Social and Economic Factors, Series A, Population Studies, No. 13, Add: 1 (New York, 1954).
41. Some results using 1850 census data are discussed in Steckel, Economics; pp. 155–56.
42. The calculations and related assumptions are discussed in detail in Steckel, Economics, pp. 162–66.
43. Lee Soltow, Men and Wealth in the United States (New Haven, 1975);
44. Lee Soltow, “Economic Inequality in the United States in the Period from 1790-1860,” this JOURNAL, 31 (Dec. 1971), 822-39;
45. Robert E. Gallman, “Trends in the Size Distribution of Wealth in the Nineteenth Century: Some Speculations,” in Lee Soltow, ed., Six Papers on the Size Distribution of Wealth and Income, Studies in Income and Wealth (New York, 1969), pp. 1—25;
46. Jackson Turner Main, “Trends in Wealth Concentration Before 1860,” this journal, 31 (June 1971), 445-47;
47. Gloria L. Main, “Inequality in Early America: The Evidence from Probate Records of Massachusetts and Maryland,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 7 (Spring 1977), 559-81;
48. Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Three Centuries of American Inequality,” Research in Economic History, 1 (1976), 69–123.
49. Richard H. Steckel, ‘‘The Fertility of American Slaves,” Research in Economic History (forthcoming).
50. Easterlin et al., “Farms and Farm Families,” p. 65.
51. Steckel, Economics, p, 103.
52. John Hajnal, “European Marriage Patterns in Perspective,” pp. 101–43 in Glass and Eversley, eds., Population in History.