The Fertility of Two-Generation Urbanites

Population Investigation Committee

The Fertility of Two-Generation UrbanitesAuthor(s): David GoldbergSource: Population Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Mar., 1959), pp. 214-222Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Population Investigation CommitteeStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2171971 .

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The Fertility of Two-Generation Urbanites By DAVID GOLDBERG

A vast amount of research has been directed at the relationship between fertility and socio-economic status. In Great Britain this relationship has been traced back to marriages contracted in i8S I through the use of the I9II census,' while in the United States, I9IO census data have been used to document the relationship as it existed in middle-sized northern cities at that time.2 Both of these studies pointed to the inverse pattern of fertility differentials.

Subsequent analyses of census data and numerous field studies in urban areas essentially confirmed the inverse relation of fertility to measures of social status but also found that the completed families of the highest status group were either similar or at times larger than the status group immediately below them.3 This was but a slight modification of the inverse pattern, since, without exception these studies showed that white-collar families were smaller than blue-collar families, that wealthy families had fewer children than poor families, and that high-school or college-educated women completed their families with a smaller number of children than women with less education.

In a study of social and psychological factors affecting fertility, the Indianapolis investigators found that the predictive power of the psychological variables was reduced to insignificance when socio-economic status was held constant.4 Measures of status again emerged as the key determinant of fertility behaviour.

Given the results of the descriptive and analytic studies, the logical step to take would be the use of economic status as the point of departure for further studies of urban fertility differentials. Describing differential fertility as it is related to socio-economic status leaves us with a large gap between independent and dependent variables. Our next move should attempt to spell out the conditions underlying status position which presumably produced the relationship between fertility and status. But before demographers and sociologists search out the more subtle influences of social class on fertility, it would seem wise to take a good look at the nature of the data that produced the original relationship. The picture derived from many of these studies may be inaccurate because of certain inadequacies of the data.

Any study of urban fertility differentials is complicated by the presence of rural elements in the population. With the massive flow of population from rural

1 J. Innes, Class Fertility Trends in England and Vales, I876-I934. Princeton: I938. 2 Xaria Sallume, and F. W. Notestein, " Trends in Size of Families Completed Prior to I9I0 in

Various Social Classes ", American Journal of Sociology, XXXVii (I932), pp. 398-408. 3 For example, see C. V. Kiser, Group Differences in Urban Fertility. Baltimore: I 942; F. W. Notestein,

"Differential Fertility in the East North Central States ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xvi (I938), pp. I73-I9I ; U.S. Bureau of the Census. Differential Fertility: I940 and i9io; Fertility by Duration of Marriage. Washington: I947.

4 C. Westoff and C. V. Kiser, " Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Fertility. XXI-An Empirical Re-examination and Intercorrelation of Selected Hypothesis Factors ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xi (I953), pp. 42I-435.

214



THE FERTILITY OF TWO-GENERATION URBANITES 2I 5

to urban places, a cross section of an urban population at any point in time will be made up largely of people who themselves have migrated from rural areas, or who are children of migrants who have had some farm experience. About one-third of all adults living in non-farm places in the United States are first- generation farm migrants. Formation of values about the role of women, home- making, and specifically size of family are not made independently of this experience. We may expect some carry over of rural values or behaviour no matter how dysfunctional they may be in the urban setting.5

Studies of urban fertility derived from census data have not focused on the differentials within the indigenous urban population. While blue-collar persons are reported to have larger completed families than white-collar persons in urban areas, this may result from occupational selectivity of rural migrants. Migrants may have a pattern of fertility different from urban persons and may also be concentrated in distinctive economic positions in the urban social system. The Indianapolis study has probably come closest to the indigenous urban population by restricting its sample to couples that had spent most of their married life in relatively large cities. However, this did not preclude the possi- bility of rural origins among the families being investigated. It may take a number of generations before rural life style characteristics are replaced by urban values and behaviour.

The purpose of this research is to take another look at socio-economic differences in fertility as they exist in a population of " pure " urban types. The central hypothesis to be explored is that the inverse pattern, so frequently observed in urban areas, is a function of the differential selectivity of status categories for farm migrants.

The data employed in this research were made available through the facilities of the Detroit Area Study.6 Each year the Detroit Area Study takes an area probability sample of the tracted area of metropolitan Detroit. The results of six such studies were combined as a basis for this report. This set of samples covered the period I952-I958. Eligible respondents for this analysis consisted of married couples, husband present, with age of wife being 40 or older. The younger couples were excluded not only because they had not yet completed their families, but because the relationship between status and fertility has been undergoing considerable change in the younger generations. Thus our study focused on the generations in which the inverse pattern was most pronounced.

In order to isolate elements of the urban population that had virtually no trace of rural background, we made use of occupational information concerning the parents of the respondents. The following question was asked of each of the respondents interviewed:

What was your (husband's) father's occupation while you (your husband) were (was) growing up ?

5 The persistence of rural fertility values and behaviour among rural migrants is shown in: R. Freedman and H. Sharp, " Correlates of Values About Ideal Family Size in the Detroit Metropolitan Area ", Population Studies, viii (I 954), pp. 3 5-45.

6 A full description of the Detroit Area Study and the sampling procedures employed can be found in: Detroit Area Study. A Social Profile of Detroit: 1956. Ann Arbor; IDetroit Area Study, I956,



zi6 DAVID GOLDBERG

If the husband's father had an urban occupation, then the husband's family had experienced an urban mode of life for at least two generations.7 The relatively high proportion of persons living in rural areas who perform urban functions would seem to make a functional definition of the urbanite a more valuable measuring stick than one based on residence, particularly with the ever-increasing expansion of the metropolitan community. There are undoubtedly drawbacks to this procedure, but we can be certain that the cases isolated in this manner bear the stamp " urban " to a greater extent than does the general Detroit population. The combination of the six studies yielded I,072 cases of two- generation urbanites and 442 rural migrants. The fertility data are reported in Table I.

It can be seen that a large part of the variation in the fertility of the total Detroit population results from the fertility behaviour of the non-indigenous persons. Differences in number of children ever born among two-generation urbanites are considerably smaller than those usually reported for urban populations. In fact, none of the differences in fertility by status or religious characteristics among two-generation urbanites are as large as the total difference in number of children between the two-generation urbanites and the rural migrants.

The occupational and income data are most striking. Differential fertility is not only narrowed within the indigenous urban population, but there are some reversals of the traditional patterns. As is usually the case in most urban places the largest families are to be found in the lowest income categories (under $3000) Among families earning $3000 or more there is a slight hint of a direct relationship. Thus the highest and lowest income groups have a similar level of fertility. Seeking a pattern for the small differences reported here is perhaps a fruitless task. None of the differences in fertility by income are statistically significant.8 Occupational differences in fertility are also small. Couples with the highest status, occupationally, have about the same number of children as those occupying the bottom of the occupational ladder. It is the skilled blue- collar families that seem to have the largest number of children. However, none of the differences are significant. In contrast to the inconsistency of fertility patterns among the two-generation urbanites, there is a distinct inverse pattern in the total population. Here we find that the unskilled or low-income couples complete their families with an average of 20-25 % more children than couples at the highest status levels. The I950 census data indicate that among white married women, age 40-59, living in urban areas, there is about a 40?% difference between the high and low status occupational groups in number of children ever born. 9

If the data from Detroit are at all representative of other urban places in the United States, the inverse pattern that has always been found can be attributed

7 Information concerning the background of the wife's father was not taken into account in defining the two-generation urbanite because these data were not available in all six studies.

8 Significance tests have been corrected for the clustering effect of the sample design. However, those differences reported as not significant are not even significant when using simple random sampling formulm.

9 U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Census of Population: I950, Speial Reports, Fertility. Washington: I957, p. 97.



THE FERTILITY OF TWO-GENERATION URBANITES 217

primarily to the fertility behaviour of rural migrant families and their dispro- portionate representation in the lower status groups. It is among this rather large element of the urban population that the inverse pattern does, in fact, exist. Rural migrants with less than $3000 income or who can be found among the

Table i. Fertilitj of women 40 and over by farm background and by occupation, income, education, and religion: Detroit, I 9 52-I 958

Total Two-Generation Sample Urbanites Farm Migrants

Selected Characteristics Proportion

of Farm Average Average Average Migrants No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of within each Children Cases Children Cases Children Cases Category

Occupation of Head- Semi- and unskilled ... 2 45 527 214 3I6 2-90 211 40% Skilled ... ... ... 2 - 47 458 2.32 333 2 90 125 27% Clerical and sales ... 2Io0 i62 2 04 1 35 2.44 27 17% Professional etc. ... 2zo6 367 2V05 288 2 i8 79 22%

Income of Head- Under $3000 .... 2V73 233 2 36 134 3.21 99 42% $3000-4999. ... 2 33 434 2-04 276 2v85 158 36% $5000-6999. . 227 392 2a15 292 26i a I00 26% $7000 and over ... 2o20 401 2 19 329 2-24 72 I8% Not ascertained ... 204 54 207 4 * 3

Eduation of Wife- Grade school ... ... 2a62 658 2.33 400 3.07 258 39% High school, I-3 years 2-25 321 2V21 239 2-38 82 26% High school, 4 years ... 2 II 33 1 2 09 274 2zi8 257 17% College ... I*87 200 1I76 157 2v28 43 2I% Not ascertained ... * 4 * 2 * 2

Religion- Catholic ... ... 2v63 5 1 3 2.37 384 3 40 129 25 % Protestant ... ... 2ri6 872 2 00 583 2-49 289 33% Other ... ... 2v26 129 2-25 105 2.33 24 19%

Total ... 2.2.33 1514 2vi6 1072 2.75 442 29%

* Too few cases to compute rate.

unskilled blue-collar workers complete their families with about three children, whereas the migrants who achieve high economic status in the city have an average of just better than two children-a figure which is about identical to the average fertility of the two-generation urbanites. Since there are no large differences in family size among the two-generation urbanites, the inverse fertility pattern of the rural migrants cannot be viewed as conformity to the norms of the groups that they enter. The variations in fertility among the farm elements in the city can probably be considered to represent differences in their adjustment to the general urban life style, including the small family pattern.

The impact of the inverse fertility pattern of rural migrants is magnified by the process of selectivity. They are overrepresented in the lowest social and



zI8 DAVID GOLDBERG

economic positions in the city. This is not only true of Detroit. Freedman and Freedman, using data from a national sample, find that the proportion of farm-reared migrants having incomes of less than $3000 is about twice as great as the proportion of non-farm reared persons having the same income. The rural migrants in the national sample are also proportionately overrepresented in the lowest educational and occupational levels. This relationship was found to exist with only small variation when controlled for size of community.10

Only education survives as a status variable capable of differentiating levels of fertility among the two-generation urbanites. Within this group there is a gradient in fertility ranging from 2 3 3 for grade-school wives down to an average of I 76 children among the college-educated wives. The higher fertility of rural migrants together with their heavy concentration in the grade-school category produces even larger differences in completed family size, when classified by education, for the total sample of metropolitan Detroit. Why education should have some predictive power with respect to fertility, whereas income and occupation do not, is subject to many interpretations. It seems possible that higher education is associated with roles or role aspirations which increase the social cost of having children. While education is frequently used together with income and occupation as a measure of status, only education represents preparation for distinctive life styles. At the time the women in this sample were of school age, the number of years spent in educational institutions probably represented the extent of exposure to the values of female emancipation. One and three-quarter children were probably more than adequate for the college woman at that time.

Religious differentials are also reduced considerably when analysis is restricted to the pure urban population. The differences shown here are somewhat smaller than those reported in the Indianapolis study. Making use of data collected from more than 6,ooo native white couples Kiser and Whelpton report an average of 2 .74 children to Catholic couples and 2 1i9 among Protestants.11 Catholic- Protestant fertility differences (2 37-2 oo) among the two-generation urbanites in Detroit are only at the borderline of statistical significance.12 The only large religious differentials in fertility for Detroiters are found among the rural migrants.

In general, the fertility differences observed among the pure urban types in Detroit are found to be not only statistically insignificant, but small in the absolute sense. Previous studies have consistently shown an inverse relationship between fertility and socio-economic status. These data seem to suggest that we have, in effect, been looking at urban-rural differences when we were attempt- ing to examine socio-economic differentials.

Much of the theoretical speculation built on the presumed social class differences in fertility may be resting on a set of rather shaky assumptions. For example, sociologists and demographers have become increasingly concerned with the

10 R. Freedman and Deborah Freedman, " Farm Reared Elements in the Non-Farm Population ", Rural Sociology, xxi (1956), pp. 5o-6i.

11 C. V. Kiser, and P. K. Whelpton, " Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Fertility. II- Variations in the Size of Completed Families of 6,55I Native White Couples in Indianapolis," Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xxii (I944), pp. 72-105.

12 P <o oi using simple random sampling formulm. With a correction for clustering in the sample, P -o . o6.



THE FERTILITY OF TWO-GENERATION URBANITES 2I9

social mobility hypothesis. 13 It has been argued that upward mobility and familism are incompatible. Thus, differences in fertility are attributed to social class differences in the adherence to the achievement motive. Personal ambition or success strivings are presumed to be most strongly developed in the white collar classes. Yet when we inspect the data that have been accumulated on this topic in the United States, there is nothing that resembles compelling evidence for the hypothesis.'4

Our data on the two-generation urbanites in Detroit provide us with another opportunity to explore the relationship between intergenerational occupational mobility and completed family size. The broad categories blue and white collar are used to define the mobility pattern. White-collar husbands whose fathers held blue-collar jobs are considered to be upward mobile. The blue-collar occu- pants whose fathers held white-collar jobs are the downward mobiles.

Table 2 shows that mobility has little effect on completed family size. Families having any history of white-collar employment, the stable white, the up and down mobiles, cannot be distinguished from one another. While there is some indication that stable blue-collar families have more children than all other mobility types, the differences are not statistically significant. The variable of occupational mobility has appealed to demographers not only because it is considered a link between social class and fertility, but because it spans a large part of the life cycle. It is, therefore, considered a more sentitive measure of the status position of the family. Yet we find no differences. These results do not stand out as one deviant case in a series of studies that point to the accuracy of the mobility hypothesis. Yellin, studying a group of about I,400 two-generation urbanites having white-collar occupations, finds that the relationship between intergenerational occupational mobility and measures of familism are non- existent.'5 The zero-order correlations between mobility and age at marriage, interval to first birth, and number of children are all less than o og. The few American studies showing consistent differences in fertility by mobility have been restricted to small segments of the population, usually elite groups.'6

We have reported on a set of data showing that the family size consequences of status position and social mobility are virtually absent in a two-generation urbanite population. Of course, it would be essential to have more than one inquiry to support an hypothesis that socio-economic differences are generally insignificant. One could argue that absolute differences of 0 -05 20 in number of children ever born have important demographic consequences. Differences of less than io%, however, do not support the theoretical arguments about the

13 See C. Westoff, "The Changing Focus of Differential Fertility Research: The Social Mobility Hypothesis ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xxxi (I 9 5 3), pp. 24-3 8 .

14 For example, see J. Kantner and C. V. Kiser, " Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Fertility. XXII-The Interrelation of Fertility, Fertility Planning, and Intergenerational Social Mobility", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xxxii (I954), pp. 69-I03, Ruth Riemer and C. V. Kiser. " Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Fertility. XXIII-Economic Tension and Social Mobility in Relation to Fertility Planning and Size of Planned Families ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xxxii (I954), pp. I67-23I.

15 S. Yellin, " Social Mobility and Familism ". Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern Uni- versity, I 9 5 5 .

16 E. D. Baltzell, " Social Mobility and Fertility Within an Elite Group ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xxxi (I953), pp. 4II-420.



220 DAVID GOLDBERG

consequences of social class on fertility. There may also be factors other than urban-rural differences which contribute to the inverse pattern in the general population. We were not able to isolate them. When the analysis of fertility differences among two-generation urbanites is restricted to native whites, the socio-economic fertility differences become even smaller than the ones reported here.

It seems unlikely that some of the explanations invoked to account for the con- vergence in fertility that we are currently observing are relevant to the population under investigation. The situation in which income and occupational differences have been minimised through the levelling of pay, the mushrooming credit structure, and the rationalisation of white-collar jobs, is a relatively recent pheno- menon. It must be remembered that the population under analysis consists of urban families in which the wife had at least reached her fortieth birthday during the period I95 2--I958. These birth cohorts date back as far as the I870's, with most of their children being born during the period I9I0-1930. At that time tool boxes were not made to conform to the design of a briefcase, nor were blue and white-collar persons living next to one another in tract houses of identical design.

An explanation for the small differences in fertility reported here may lie in shifting sex role differentiation within the family. It has been shown elsewhere that there are two distinctly different sets of conditions which influence men and women in their family size decisions.'7 For women, fertility norms and behaviour

Table z. Fertiliy of women 40 and over by religion and by occupational status of head and head's father: Detroit, I95 2-5 8

Occupation of Head's father

White Collar Blue Collar Occupation of Head

Average No. No. of Average No. No. of of Children Cases of Children Cases

Total Sample- White Collar ... ... 2-02 205 2-o8 2i8 Blue Collar ... ... ... ... I*98 127 2v29 5 22

Catholics White Collar ... ... ... ... 2-30 43 2-2I 8s Blue Collar... ... ... ... 2-i6 32 2.49 224

Non-Catholics- White Collar ... ... ... ... 1.94 i62 I-99 133 Blue Collar ... ... ... ... 93 95 2 *i6 2998

are conditioned by the extent of their participation in the kinship network and home-centered leisure. Among males, status conditions are directly related to number of children expected or desired. Thus the number of children born to

17 D. Goldberg, " Family Role Structure and Fertility ". Paper presented at the meetings of the Population Association of America, 1958.



THE FERTILITY OF TWO-GENERATION URBANITES 22I

a family may represent a compromise between the desires of husband and wife since the pressures exerted by each have a tendency to cancel one another. As family status increases the wife is likely to be exposed to areas of consumption which shift the balance of roles away from home and family. Under these conditions the husband may want a relatively large family, as his status situation will accomodate, while the wife may exert pressures in the opposite direction because a large family would put considerable strain on her role pattern. Where the family size decision is shared equally by husband and wife, socio-economic differences are not likely to produce different levels of fertility. I believe that the two-generation urbanites represent a population in which decisions about number of children are more likely to be shared than in other populations.

The so-called traditional family was one in which there existed a very sharp differentiation of sex roles. The performance of household and child-rearing functions was clearly the task of the wife. Family size decisions, like other decisions, are generally the property of the person having the most extensive involvement in the particular area under consideration-in this case, the wife. Traditional family structure has persisted longest in predominantly rural areas. In the urban community, the line which separates the traditional sex roles has become increasingly more difficult to distinguish. Not only have women invaded the male economic sphere, but the male has been drawn into the female world of household responsibilities, including child care matters. Much of American humour focuses on the modern urban male struggling to maintain the last remnants of masculinity. However, it would appear that in some parts of American society the battle has been lost. He has become the servant-class husband, second in command of domestic chores.

The participation of men in household activities has probably resulted in males having greater weight in the traditionally feminine decisions, just as the working wife has greater influence in economic matters. This type of famnily organisation is more likely to be found among two-generation urbanites than among rural migrants. If the emergence of the egalitarian family has resulted in the sharing of family size decisions, the data reported here begin to take on some meaning. In the migrant families virtually the entire load of child care responsibilities rests with the wife. The number of children in the household affect her activities, not the husband's. The inverse fertility pattern among the traditional rural migrant families can be understood in terms of the roles of the migrant wives. Those who achieved high-status in the city were more likely to be involved in extra-familial roles than the migrant wives located at the bottom of the status hierarchy. Small families for high-status migrants and large families for low-status migrants are congruent with their respective roles in the city. The absence of differences in fertility by socio-economic status among the two generation urbanites may be hypothesized as resulting from the conflicting interests of husband and wife with respect to the shared decision concerning number of children desired-status being directly related to desired family size for males, inversely related for females.

A review of the differential fertility literature indicates that the instances in which fertility is not inversely related to measures of socio-economic status occur



222 DAVID GOLDBERG

among the groups that have been identified with egalitarian family structure. Kiser, using data collected in the I936 National Health Survey, finds exceptions to the inverse pattern among native white couples, while among foreign-born white couples the birth rates are consistently found to be inversely related to education, occupation, and income.18 It should also be noted that variations from the inverse pattern always occur in the higher status levels. The decline of the traditional family structure and the shift toward the more egalitarian structure was observed to occur first in the native white, urban, white collar classes.

In the coming years, for all types of American communities, we should expect to find fertility differences resembling those which were found to exist among the two-generation urbanites. This will result not only from the spread of a family type in which decisions are more likely to be shared, but also from funda- mental changes in the economic system, the effect of which is to reduce the relevance of traditional stratification variables.19 The traditional indicators, such as income or occupation, are not likely to account for a large part of the variance in fertility in the future because these indicators probably will not have the same impact they once had in determining the family's role in relation to other institutions of the community.

18 C. V. Kiser, " Intra-Group Differences in Birth Rates of Married Women ", Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, xix (I94I), pp. 147-I70.

19 A recent theoretical treatment of the implications of the changing economic organization can be found in: D. Miller and G. Swanson, The American Parent in the Twentieth Century. In the press.



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The Fertility of Two-Generation Urbanites