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Historical Social Research
HSR Vol. 36 (2011) No. 2: Special Issue: Fertility in the History of the 20th Century

Josef Ehmer, Jens Ehrhardt, Martin Kohli (Eds.): Fertility in the History of the 20th Century: Trends, Theories, Policies, Discourses.

In this special issue, a pluridisciplinary group of scholars discusses the complex interrelationship among fertility trends, population theories, policies and public discourses. Whereas the three former fields have been intensely studied in demography and its neighboring disciplines, there is still little work on population discourses, and even less that link them to the trends, theories and policies of population. The editors hope to stimulate the scientific debate on this topic, to raise awareness of these interconnections, and to contribute to more theoretical integration.

The special issue is organized in three sections: The first one discusses approaches to the study of fertility across historical periods. The second section concentrates on discourses and politics and their practical impact on reproductive behavior. The third section concentrates on recent trends in fertility, mainly in Europe and East Asia. This special issue originated at a conference in Berlin in January 2010 that was organized by the Working Group A Future with Children: Fertility and Societal Development. The Working Group was established in 2009 by the German Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and is funded by the Jacobs Foundation. [Order this issue]

Table of contents & abstracts

Table of contents & abstracts

Special Issue
  • Editorial (p. 5-8)
  • Ehmer, Josef: The Significance of Looking Back: Fertility before the “Fertility Decline”. (p. 11-34) [Abstract]
  • Ehrhardt, Jens; Kohli, Martin: Individualisation and Fertility. (p. 35-64) [Abstract]
  • Szreter, Simon: Theories and Heuristics: How Best to Approach the Study of Historic Fertility Declines? (p. 65-98) [Abstract]
  • Etzemüller, Thomas: The Population Discourse: A Transnational Matrix. The Case of Germany and Sweden. (p. 101-119) [Abstract]
  • Bertaux, Sandrine: Reproduce or Perish? The Artefact of the Fertility Concept and the French School of Demography. (p. 120-139) [Abstract]
  • Usborne, Cornelie: Social Body, Racial Body, Woman’s Body. Discourses, Policies, Practices from Wilhelmine to Nazi Germany, 1912-1945. (p. 140-161) [Abstract]
  • Neyer, Gerda; Bernardi, Laura: Feminist Perspectives on Motherhood and Reproduction. (p. 162-176) [Abstract]
  • Lesthaeghe, Ron: The “Second Demographic Transition”: A Conceptual Map for the Understanding of Late Modern Demographic Developments in Fertility and Family Formation. (p. 179-218) [Abstract]
  • Ochiai, Emiko: Unsustainable Societies: The Failure of Familialism in East Asia’s Compressed Modernity. (p. 219-245) [Abstract]
  • Sobotka, Tomáš: Fertility in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989: Collapse and Gradual Recovery. (p. 246-296) [Abstract]
Mixed Issue
  • Schramm, Manuel: Langfristiges exponentielles Wachstum der Wissenschaft? Eine quantitative Überprüfung am Beispiel der Wissensproduktion im frühneuzeitlichen Europa. (p. 299-308) [Abstract]
  • Kaven, Carsten: Max Webers „Die sozialen Gründe des Untergangs der antiken Kultur“ – Eine mechanismische Rekonstruktion in Petrinetzen. (p. 309-337) [Abstract]
  • Diebolt, Claude: Does Douglass North Offer an Original Research Agenda to Analyse the Relationships Between Education and Economic Performance? (p. 338-342) [Abstract]
  • Paolilli, Antonio Luigi; Pollice, Fabio: Trajectories of State Formation in Eurasia: A Discussion. (p. 343-371) [Abstract]