AUSTRALIA’S FERTILITY TRANSITION A STUDY OF 19TH-CENTURY TASMANIA AUSTRALIA’S FERTILITY TRANSITION A STUDY OF 19TH-CENTURY TASMANIA HELEN MOYLE Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760463366 ISBN (online): 9781760463373 WorldCat (print): 1137826491 WorldCat (online): 1137860712 DOI: 10.22459/AFT.2020 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This publication was awarded a College of Arts and Social Sciences PhD Publication Prize in 2019. The prize contributes to the cost of professional copyediting. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph: NS5098/1/88, ‘Woman with two children and an infant sitting outside’, Tasmanian Archives. This edition © 2020 ANU Press Contents Abbreviations . vii Acknowledgements . ix List of figures . xi List of tables . xv 1 . Introduction: Theories of the historical fertility decline . 1 2 . The Australian fertility decline . 27 3 . Tasmania in the 19th and early 20th centuries . 41 4 . Research design and data sources . 63 5 . Characteristics of the Tasmanian marriage cohorts . .. 83 6 . Fertility patterns of the couples in the marriage cohorts . 111 7 . How, when and why did fertility decline? . 145 8 . Why did fertility fall in Tasmania during this period? Qualitative insights . 185 9. Conclusion . 221 Appendix A: Appendix tables . 231 Appendix B: Data sources used for family reconstitution . 253 Appendix C: Local history museums . 257 Appendix D: Individual stories . 259 Bibliography . 265 Index . 287 Abbreviations CPA Cohort Parity Analysis EFP European Fertility Project HISCLASS Historical International Social Class Scheme HISCO Historical International Classification of Occupations NSW New South Wales NZ New Zealand TFR total fertility rate UK United Kingdom WHO World Health Organization vii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Humanities and Creative Arts Editorial Board of ANU Press for awarding me the 2019 CASS Publishing Prize, which enabled me to turn my PhD thesis into a published book. I would also like to thank Edith Gray, the head of the School of Demography at The Australian National University, for her support in my application for the prize. Thank you to Emily Hazlewood and her team at ANU Press for making the production of this book such a smooth process. In regards to my original PhD thesis, I would like to thank Rebecca Kippen for her support and encouragement and for generously sharing her databases with me. The members of my supervisory panel—Rebecca, Zhongwei Zhao and David Lucas—all read my drafts and gave me helpful comments and advice. I would like to thank Teresa Neeman, from the ANU Statistical Consulting Unit, and Edith Gray for their statistical advice; Anna Reimondos for her help in preparing the dataset and for advice on STATA; and Heather Crawford and Jenny White for their help with software packages. Iwu Utomo, the PhD coordinator, was very supportive and encouraging, as were my fellow PhD students. I would also like to thank Julie Rowe for sharing her experiences of the PhD journey with me. Janet McCalman and Trudy Cowley of the Founders and Survivors Project at the University of Melbourne/University of Tasmania generously shared their Catholic baptisms database with me. Bronwyn Meikle, who was at that time doing a PhD in history at the University of Tasmania, gave me the benefit of her extensive knowledge about 19th-century Tasmania. I would also like to thank the staff and volunteers of the Tasmanian local history museums listed in Appendix C for their time and assistance and the family history societies and genealogists who helped me try to track down some of my missing families. ix AusTRALIA's Fertility TRAnsITIon I would like to thank the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) Scientific Panel on Historical Demography for accepting me to participate in the workshop on ‘Socioeconomic Stratification and Fertility Before, During and After the Demographic Transition’ in September 2012. This was a very valuable experience and my thesis benefited from it greatly. All the participants were very helpful, but particularly Jan Van Bavel, who continued to give me advice after I returned to Australia. I am also very grateful to George Alter for accepting me as a student in the Longitudinal Analysis of Demographic Data course at the University of Michigan summer school in August 2013. This course was invaluable and I could not have written this book if I had not participated in it. Ken Smith and Glenn Deane, who taught survival analysis, were very helpful with statistical advice after I returned to Australia. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their support and encouragement, particularly my husband, who helped me in so many ways. x List of figures Figure 2.1 Coale’s fertility indices (Ig and If), Australia, 1861–1921, and Tasmania, 1881–1921. 28 Figure 2.2 Estimated total fertility rate (TFR) for Tasmania, 1860–1921 (three-year moving average) ...................29 Figure 2.3 Mean children ever born to married women, Australia and Tasmania, 1911 census ............................31 Figure 2.4 Mean children ever born to married women, Australia and Tasmania, 1921 census ............................32 Figure 2.5 Children ever born to married women by birth cohort, Australia, 1921 census ................................32 Figure 6.1 Proportions of families by number of children, complete group: 1860, 1870, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .........................................113 Figure 6.2 Proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860, 1870, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................127 Figure 6.3 Proportions of women reaching each parity by socioeconomic status, complete group: 1860/70 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................128 Figure 6.4 Proportions of women reaching each parity by socioeconomic status, complete group: 1880 marriage cohort, Tasmania ...................................129 Figure 6.5 Proportions of women reaching each parity by socioeconomic status, complete group: 1890 marriage cohort, Tasmania .........................................129 xi AusTRALIA's Fertility TRAnsITIon Figure 6.6 White-collar workers, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................130 Figure 6.7 Skilled workers, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................131 Figure 6.8 Farmers, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .........................................131 Figure 6.9 Lower-skilled workers, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................132 Figure 6.10 Unskilled workers, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................133 Figure 6.11 Proportions of women reaching each parity by urban/rural location, complete group: 1860/70 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................134 Figure 6.12 Proportions of women reaching each parity by urban/rural location, complete group: 1880 marriage cohort, Tasmania .........................................134 Figure 6.13 Proportions of women reaching each parity by urban/rural location, complete group: 1890 marriage cohort, Tasmania .........................................135 Figure 6.14 Proportions of women reaching each parity for couples living in an urban area, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .......................136 Figure 6.15 Proportions of women reaching each parity for couples living in a rural area, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ...........................136 Figure 6.16 Proportions of women reaching each parity by religion, complete group: 1860/70 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .......137 Figure 6.17 Proportions of women reaching each parity by religion, complete group: 1880 marriage cohort, Tasmania ..........138 xii LIsT oF FIguRes Figure 6.18 Proportions of women reaching each parity by religion, complete group: 1890 marriage cohort, Tasmania ..........139 Figure 6.19 Anglicans, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .........................................139 Figure 6.20 Catholics, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .........................................140 Figure 6.21 Presbyterians, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania ..................................140 Figure 6.22 Methodists, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .........................................141 Figure 6.23 Other Nonconformists, proportions of women reaching each parity, complete group: 1860/70, 1880 and 1890 marriage cohorts, Tasmania .......................142 Figure 7.1 Mean