Corsets and Conception: Fashion and Demographic Trends in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

It is generally accepted that declining birth rates in most Western countries after the late 1870s2were preceded by declining marital fertility among the middle classes. Though some scholars have suggested that the general decline was due partly to the working classes' later emulation of the middleclass family size “ideal,” no hypothesis has been presented to explain satisfactorily the downward trend in middle-class fertility. The most widely accepted explanation is that the “great depression” of 1873–96 lowered the middle-class standard of living, which in turn led to a concomitant decline in the birth rate as middle-class couples tried to retain or improve levels of consumption and status. However, recent research indicates that the great depression may not have been anywhere near as severe as earlier scholars have implied. But even if the middle classes believed that they were experiencing a declining standard of living, surely many years of supposed deprivation would have been necessary to jolt their class psyche to the realization that the future was to remain forever gloomy. And when some authorities who promoted the great depression hypothesis also claim that the middle-class fertility decline commenced in the early 1870s, before the onset of the great depression, then the argument becomes even more suspect. If the work of other authorities, who have received less coverage in demographic literature, is considered, then it is not the great depression but the 1850s and 1860s—the period of mid-Victorian prosperity—that should be supported as heralding the decline in fertility.