Nuptiality and population growth

Abstract

In the European historical experience, nuptiality patterns played a very significant role in the development of low fertility. Late marriage and widespread celibacy provided one of the mechanisms by which age-specific fertility rates were brought to low levels in the populations of Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Europe on the other hand, where marriage customarily occurred earlier and was more nearly universal, a somewhat slower fertility transition was achieved through a reduction in marital fertility — without any drastic accompanying nuptiality change. Populations of developing countries, however, commonly exhibit nuptiality patterns characterized by a still higher incidence and a considerably younger age-pattern of marriage than even the earliest observed schedule from Eastern Europe. With few exceptions, little work has been done to date to examine the implications of these very early and universal marriage schedules for fertility in general and for the growth of these populations in particular.¹ We have therefore tried to analyse the impact of nuptiality on the fertility and growth of a series of populations from developing nations where extra-marital fertility is negligible. Populations in which the prevalence of cohabitation by age is not well documented by existing marital-status data (mainly those in Latin America and tropical Africa) are excluded from this analysis; an attempt will be made in later work, however, to extend the analysis to these populations.