An Atlas of Fertility Decline in England and Wales
Geographies
Fertility indices mapped according to county (Teitelbaum, 1984, The British Fertility Decline: Demographic Transition in the Crucible of the Industrial Revolution, Princeton University Press, p.131) show very little differentiation for Britain, especially for England and Wales. | |
A more differentiated picture emerges when fertility is mapped by the 614 registration districts (Woods, 2000, The Demography of Victorian England and Wales, Cambridge University Press, p. 96g), but tendency for registration districts to include both urban areas as well as their rural hinterlands obscures more subtle variation. | |
We calculate fertility measures for the over 2000 registration sub-districts in England and Wales, to allow a more nuanced geography of fertility to become visible, and to be related to other small area measures based on socio-economic status. This map shows total marital fertility in 1911: the number of children a woman would have if she married age 20 and remained married until age 49. |
For a case study, see Derbyshire case study.