Late fertility decline in the Netherlands: The influence of religious denomination,socioeconomic group and region

Both published results from the 1930, 1947, 1960 and 1971 censuses and unpublished ones are used to examine the influence that religious denomination, socio-economic group and region exerted on the fertility of marriages contracted between 1876 and 1959. A theory formulated by Lesthaeghe and Wilson on the relation between modes of production and secularization and the pace of fertility decline in Western Europe offers — in combination with van Heek's views on the special position of Dutch Roman Catholicism — a starting point for an explanation of why the fertility decline of Roman Catholics, self-employed and agricultural labourers lagged behind.     

Early-life conditions and adult mortality decline in Dutch cohorts born 1812–1921

Mounting evidence suggests that early-life conditions have an enduring effect on an individual’s mortality risks as an adult. The contribution of improvements in early-life conditions to the overall decline in adult mortality, however, remains a debated issue. We provide an estimate of the contribution of improvements in early-life conditions to mortality decline after age 30 in Dutch cohorts born between 1812 and 1921. We used two proxies for early-life conditions: median height and early-childhood mortality. We estimate that improvements in early-life conditions contributed more than five years or about a third to the rise in women’s life expectancy at age 30. Improvements in early-life conditions contributed almost three years or more than a quarter to the rise in men’s life expectancy at age 30. Height appears to be the more important of the two proxies for early-life conditions.     

Widowhood,family size,and post-reproductive Mortality: a comparative Analysis of three populations in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Researchers from a number of disciplines have offered competing theories about the effects oJ childbearing on parents 'postreproductive longevity. The "disposable soma theory" argues that investments in somatic maintenance increase longevity but reduce childbearing. "Maternal depletion" models suggest that the rigors of childrearing increase mortality in later years. Other researchers consider continued childbearing a sign of healthy aging and a predictor of future longevity. Empirical studies have produced inconsistent and contradictory results. Our focus is on the experience of widowhood, which has been ignored in previous studies. We hypothesize that the death of a spouse is a stressful event with long-term consequences for health, especially for women with small children. Data are drawn from historical sources in Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands from 1766 to 1980. Postreproductive mortality was highest among young widows with larger families in all three samples. Age at last birth had little or no effect. We conclude that raising children under adverse circumstances can have long-lasting, harmful effects on a mother's health.     

Reclassifying causes of death to study the epidemiological transition in The Netherlands, 1875–1992

This article describes a method for reclassifying causes of death in the Netherlands for the period 1875–1992. Two criteria should be met to obtain a useful classification to study the epidemiological transition. First, the categories should be nosologically continuous over the period under study and second, there should be enough detail in causes which are important in the context of the epidemiological transition viz. communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and external causes of death. A method developed by Vallin and Meslé (1988), which involves ‘dual correspondence tables’ and ‘fundamental associations’, was used to create nosologically continuous categories. These categories were tested for statistical continuity during the transition years of one ICD-revision to the next, using ordinary least squares regression analysis. The reclassification procedure resulted in a nested classification consisting of three levels of refinement of causes of death: 27 causes, 1875–1992; 65 causes, 1901–1992; and 92 causes, 1931–1992. On the basis of this classification, 43% of all deaths in 1875–79 and 98% of all deaths in 1992 could be allocated to either communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases or external causes.     

Measuring the effect of changing legislation on the frequency of divorce: The Netherlands, 1830–1990

This article discusses different procedures for measuring the effects of judicial changes on divorce rates. It presents an alternative model and applies it to a historical time series for the Netherlands. In this model, intervention variables were added to a statistical time-series (ARIMA) model. The conclusion of our analysis was that the effects of three judicial changes were only temporary. Revised text of a paper presented at the seminar “The Role of the State and of Public Opinion in Sexual Attitudes and Demographic Behaviour since the 18th Century,” 17th International Congress of Historical Sciences/ Commission Internationale de Démographie Historique, held in Madrid, August 31-September 1, 1990. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics.     

Marital Fertility Decline in the Netherlands: Child Mortality, Real Wages, and Unemployment, 1860–1939

Previous studies of the fertility decline in Europe are often limited to an earlier stage of the marital fertility decline, when the decline tended to be slower and before the large increase in earnings in the 1920s. Starting in 1860 (before the onset of the decline), this study follows marital fertility trends until 1939, when fertility reached lower levels than ever before. Using data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN), this study shows that mortality decline, a rise in real income, and unemployment account for the decline in the Netherlands. This finding suggests that marital fertility decline was an adjustment to social and economic change, leaving little room for attitudinal change that is independent of social and economic change.     

Living Conditions in the Arctic

This paper introduces a model for conductingresearch on living conditions among peoplesthat have experienced rapid social, culturaland economic change in countries where anon-parallel development has occurred. Thismodel was developed by the researchers ofSLICA, A Survey of Living Conditions inthe Artic; Inuit, Saami and the IndigenousPeoples of Chukotka, which was initiated byStatistics Greenland in 1997.The point of departure for this model is acritique of contemporary living conditionssurveys carried out by national statisticalbureaus in economically, technologically andculturally segmented areas. The point of viewis that these studies erroneously assume thatthe populations they investigate arehomogeneous, and that consensus concerningindividual social and economic objectivesexists. This usually leads to research designsand indicators of individual well-being thatreflect the dominant culture, or the prevalentway of living and thinking in these countries.The focus of this paper is on the researchdesign of SLICA. The implementation of twoimportant methodological challenges isdiscussed. Namely, (1) how to secure acontext-specific concept of well-being whichalso mirrors the life forms and the prioritiesof the respondents and (2) how to measureimpacts of structural change on individualwell-being.     

Religious differentials in marital fertility in The Hague (Netherlands) 1860-1909

Previous studies of the marital fertility transition in Europe have found religious differentials. Using data collected from the population registers of The Hague, our aim in this study is to search for answers to the following questions: whether religious differentials result from socio-economic characteristics; to what extent religious ideology explains the behaviour of religious groups; which proximate determinants account for the religious differentials; and whether the Jews were forerunners in the marital fertility transition in Europe. The results provide some evidence of relatively low levels of parity-dependent fertility control among Jews before the transition and among Catholics during the transition. Religious ideology probably accounts for the low level of fertility control among Catholics. The ultimate reason for the relatively high marital fertility among Jews before the transition remains unclear. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that Jews were forerunners in the marital fertility transition.     

Religious differentials in infant and child mortality in Holland, 1855-1912

At least three kinds of hypothesis may be invoked to interpret religious differentials in mortality. They are (i) hypotheses that refer to characteristics, (ii) those that refer to lifestyle, and (iii) those that refer to the social isolation of minorities. This paper tests all three kinds of hypothesis using data on urban child mortality from the Hague just before and during the demographic transition. A hazard analysis suggests that economic and demographic characteristics do not account for much of the variation by religion. An analysis of seasonal mortality suggests that some of the variation may be explained by differences in lifestyle. The third kind of hypothesis is presented here for the first time. We suggest that the social isolation of small religious groups lowered their exposure to certain kinds of infectious disease. We use a simulation study to show that this hypothesis could account for part of the variation.