Overview

Sustained population studies of fertility over the last two centuries have come to question the extent to which trends in low fertility may be understood as universal. Improved knowledge of variations within countries and between communities has revealed heterogeneity in reproductive behaviours at sub-national levels – whether before, during, or after the so-called ‘fertility transition’. Population studies have also come to give more attention to the role of structural inequalities, including around family, class, gender, and health, and of people’s diverse and changing reproductive strategies that underpin varying low fertilities at sub-national levels. This collection develops compositional demography approaches to address the advancements in sub-national variations. It brings together studies in anthropology, demography, history, and sociology, that have together developed an analytical lens for examining the low fertility phenomenon not as a mere average but as a composite of different reproductive behaviours and regimes. The volume is among the first to collect historical patterns of low fertilities and their underlying structural conditions in a long-term comparative perspective. It is also the first to detail comprehensively the compositional demography approach, which can be also applied to the study of various demographic phenomena around fertility, mortality, ageing, migration, and other population issues.

Full Product Details

Author:   Yuliya Hilevych ,  Philip Kreager
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   The British Academy
Volume:   284
ISBN:  

9781805966661

ISBN 10:   1805966669
Pages:   440
Publication Date:   28 February 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures Notes on Contributors Introduction PHILIP KREAGER AND YULIYA HILEVYCH Part I The Descent from Macro: Comparing Regional Population Distributions A Spatial Approach to European Fertility Trends since 2008 NICHOLAS CAMPISI Macro-Economic Conditions and Regional Variation in the Russian Total Fertility Rollercoaster, 1992-2019 MICHAEL ZASLAVSKY, TED GERBER, AND SUNNEE BILLINGSLEY Forerunners, Space, and the Role of Religion during the Fertility Transition in England and Wales, 1851-1911 STEPHANIE THIEHOFF Continuity and Change in Spatial Patterns of Fertility: The Case of London HANNALIIS JAADLA, ALICE REID, EILIDH GARRETT AND KEVIN SCHÜRER Part II The Rich Potential of Meso: Synergies from Combined Top-Down and Bottom-Up Population Thinking Low Fertilities before the Fertility Transition: Childlessness and Small Families in a 19th-century Dutch Province HILDE BRAS When Marriage Becomes Unattainable: A Cohort Analysis of Fertility in Rural South Africa HANNAH GARDNER Part III Understanding Communication Communities 7. A Different View on ‘Low’ Fertility: Perceptions of Ideal Family Size and Women’s Reproductive Pathways across Generations in Central Oman MAREN JORDAN Postponement of Subsequent Childbirth: Fertility Decline under Conditions of Uncertainty in Botswana and Lesotho ASTRID BOCHOW AND LENA KROEKER Crisis-Led Fertility Declines? Theorising the Influence of Compounding Crises and Structural Violence on Low Fertility in South Africa KAMMILA NAIDOO Gendered Fertility: Reproductive Desires and Practices in Two Neighbourhoods in Contemporary Havana HEIDI HӒRKÖNEN Intergenerational Support for Childcare: An Essential for Making the Second-child Decision in the Two-Child Policy Era SHIBEI NI “In this generation, they mostly had one child”: Reproductive Norms and Reproductive Uncertainties of One-Child Families a the Onset of Low Fertility in Soviet Ukraine YULIYA HILEVYCH Conclusions and Outstanding Issues PHILIP KREAGER AND YULIYA HILEVYCH Index

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Author Information

Yuliya Hilevych is an Associate Professor of economic and social history at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Philip Kreager is Senior Research Fellow in Human Sciences (Demography), Somerville College, University of Oxford.

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