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Fertility, social class, gender, and the professional model: statistical explanation and historical significance


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Authors

Szreter, Simon 

Abstract

jats:pIn 2012 <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">B</jats:styled-content>arnes and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">G</jats:styled-content>uinnane published a revised statistical analysis of the critical evaluation of the official 1911 social class model of fertility decline that was presented in chapter 6 of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>zreter's jats:italicFertility, class and gender in <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">B</jats:styled-content>ritain, 1860–1940</jats:italic> (jats:italic<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FCG</jats:styled-content></jats:italic>). They argue that the official model of five ranked social classes is, after all, a satisfactory statistical summary of the fertility variance found among the married couples of England and Wales at the famous 1911 fertility census, and so they conclude that, jats:italicpace</jats:italic> Szreter, the official model provides a satisfactory account of the nation's fertility decline as one of social class differentials. It is acknowledged here that Barnes and Guinnane have deployed superior statistical techniques. However, it is pointed out that jats:italic<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FCG</jats:styled-content></jats:italic> identified fundamental problems with the design of the 1911 official model. It was a social evolutionary model privileging male professional occupations, not a modelling of recognized social class theory at the time or since. In jats:italic<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FCG</jats:styled-content></jats:italic> it was therefore termed ‘the professional model’. The central historiographical claim of jats:italic<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FCG</jats:styled-content></jats:italic> is re‐affirmed: that in order to study fruitfully the historical relationship between social class and fertility decline, an alternative approach is needed which explicitly integrates gender relations with social class.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

3801 Applied Economics, 38 Economics, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 4303 Historical Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields, Contraception/Reproduction

Journal Title

The Economic History Review

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0013-0117
1468-0289

Volume Title

68

Publisher

Wiley