Kinderwunsch im Krieg: Kriegserfahrung und Fertilität in Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Piro Katerina ()
Additional contact information
Piro Katerina: Universität Mannheim, Abteilung Volkswirtschaftslehre, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, L7,3-5, D-68131, Mannheim, Germany

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 2018, vol. 59, issue 2, 471-505

Abstract: Does the experience of war necessarily lead to lower fertility and the postponement of starting or enlarging a family? This qualitative analysis verifies the economic and sociological theories of family planning during war. The excellent source material from World War II in Germany allows for an analysis of a large number of ego-documents. The results imply that married couples were aware of the difficult circumstances and dealt with increased infertility, miscarriages and infant mortality. However, they did not let adversity interfere with their generative decisions. The experience of war did not deter people from planning, starting or building a family. It appears that during wartime, children fulfilled important psychological values for their (prospective) parents.

Keywords: Fertility; World War II; Germany; ego-documents; family planning; crisis; Fertilität; Zweiter Weltkrieg; Deutschland; Tagebücher; Feldpost; Kinderwunsch; Familiengründung; Krise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D J N (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2018-0016 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:59:y:2018:i:2:p:471-505:n:6

DOI: 10.1515/jbwg-2018-0016

Access Statistics for this article

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook is currently edited by Dieter Ziegler

More articles in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().