Childless and Single-Childed Women in Early Twentieth-Century America

Abstract

Over the course of this century, there have been marked fluctuations in the extent of childlessness and single-child fertility. In this article, data from the 1960 U.S. Census are used to examine cohort trends in childlessness and single-child motherhood among women born in the years 1891-1925. A marked rise in low-parity fertility is found among women who reached prime reproductive ages during the 1930s; cohorts born prior to or after these women had much lower levels of childlessness and single-child fertility. This rise and fall in low-partiy fertility is examined in the light of theories that see its cause as due to changes in (1) demographic composition across cohorts, (2) health levels that affect fecundity and hence fertility, (3) normative prescriptions to bear children and countervailing norms, and (4) economic conditions that affect the degree to which women limit reproduction. A loglinear analysis of changes in the composition of cohorts in race, age at marriage, marital history, and education shows that sociodemographic changes do not explain the upturn in low-parity fertility. Through an analysis of health statistics and the medical literature, the theory that changing health levels are responsible for the rise and fall in low-parity fertility is rejected. The normative and economic theories are found to be most useful in explaining trends in low-parity fertility. It is argued that over the course of this century, an interaction between economic conditions and reproductive ideology has both necessitated women limiting their childbearing in times of economic depression and provided justification for this.