Hannaliis Jaadla, Alice Reid, & Eilidh Garrett
Concerns about low and declining fertility are common in the media and feature in public discussions around much of Europe and South East Asia. The size of the future work force and the sustainability of pension systems in years to come both depend on the number of children born today. In England and Wales, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) fell to 1.49 children per woman in 2022, and 2023 was the first year in nearly half a century – and only the second in the last 250 years – when there were fewer births than deaths.
Alice Reid, Eilidh Garrett, & Hanna Jaadla
It is generally accepted that the context of marriage was seen as the proper place for childbearing in historic Britain, and levels of non-marital fertility, or ‘illegitimacy’, were relatively low. Depictions in literature suggest that unmarried mothers were predominantly servant girls ‘taken advantage of’ by their unscrupulous employers or, as was the case for the eponymous Tess of the D’Urbervilles, their sons. Even some historians espouse this view.
But was this really the case? And what do levels and patterns of unmarried motherhood tell us about sexual activity outside marriage? This blog describes what demography can tell us about who was having sex before marriage in the past, who ended up as unmarried mothers, and how these were likely viewed by society.
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The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure