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The interpretation and role of work-associated accelerated childbearing in post-war Britain

Interprétation et rôle du rapprochement des naissances lié au travail des femmes dans la Grande-Bretagne d'après-guerre

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Abstract

The paper examines a variety of data relating to work-associated differentials in birth-spacing and concludes that these may be interpreted as work-motivated. Two effects of employment on fertility are hypothesized: current work exerting a negative, decelerating influence and prospective employment a positive, accelerating influence. It is argued that the post-war rise in fertility to the mid-60s may have been brought about, in part, by the strong trend in women's labour-force participation. The ‘pull’ of future work is argued to have been stronger during the 1950s and 1960s and that of current economic activity to have increased during the 1970s. The changing balance of attractiveness between current and prospective economic activity may therefore initially have had an accelerating and later a decelerating impact on birth rates.

Résumé

En examinant plusieurs ensembles de données relatives aux différences d'espacement des naissances associées à l'emploi féminin, l'auteur montre que ces différences peuvent être interprétées comme déterminées par l'attitude des femmes à l'égard de l'activité économique. Elle fait l'hypothèse d'un double effet de l'emploi sur la fécondité: l'emploi actuel exerçant une influence négative, une décélération, et l'emploi futur une influence positive, une accélération. Elle montre que la hausse de la fécondité constatée depuis la guerre jusqu'au milieu des années soixante peut avoir été causée, en partie, par le grand mouvement de participation des femmes à l'activité économique. L'effet de l'emploi future aurait été dominant pendant les années cinquante et soixante, et celui de l'emploi actuel se serait accru pendant les années soixante-dix. Ce changement de répartition des influences entre l'activité actuelle et l'activité future peut donc avoir eu un impact d'abord accélérateur, ensuite décélérateur, sur les taux de fécondité.

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Acknowledgments: I thank Professor J.R.T. Colley, Director, MRC National Survey of Health and Development and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys for access to the data sets used. Heather Joshi, Colin Newell and Ian Timaeus collaborated in data preparation and Mike Wadsworth and Janet Wingfield gave much useful advice and help in this. This work was supported by a grant from the ESRC to the Centre for Population Studies, which is a Designated Research Centre of the ESRC.

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Bhrolcháin, M.N. The interpretation and role of work-associated accelerated childbearing in post-war Britain. Eur J Population 2, 135–154 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796887

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796887

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