The Shaping of a Settler Fertility Transition: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century South African Demographic History Reconsidered

Jeanne Cilliers () and Martine Mariotti

No 8, CEH Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: Using South African Families(SAF), a new database of settler genealogies, we provide for the first time, a description of female marital fertility in South Africa from 1700 to 1909. We find high and stable levels of fertility up to the mid-nineteenth century, typical of a pre-transition population, after which fertility declines. The usual correlates of a decline in fertility, namely, later starting and earlier stopping of childbearing, together with increased spacing between births, can be seen from the second half of the nineteenth century. The South African fertility transition mirrors to a large extent the pattern found in other settler communities, aswell as the European experience despite the somewhat different economic and social circumstances of the country, in particular relative to Europe.

Keywords: South Africa; Fertility; Gennealogies; Settle demography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEH/WP201708.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: The shaping of a settler fertility transition: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African demographic history reconsidered (2019)
Working Paper: The Shaping of a Settler Fertility Transition: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century South African Demographic History Reconsidered (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:hpaper:059

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