Abstract
This paper examines the ways in which the behavior of twentieth century cohorts of American women changed simultaneously in the three components of fertility that determine age at last birth—age at first birth, spacing between subsequent births, and parity progression ratios of subsequent births—to produce changes in the timing of the completion of childbearing. It decomposes changes in the mean age at last birth among cohorts and between whites and nonwhites to changes in these three components. To perform these analyses, we developed and applied a method to estimate the distributions and means of ages at first and last births, birth intervals, and parity progression ratios from age- and parity-specific fertility rates available from vital statistics data. Results show that the cohorts increased and decreased their age at first birth, birth intervals, and parity progression ratios of lower and higher birth orders in almost every possible combination so as to achieve a relatively young age at final birth.
The text of this article is only available as a PDF.
References
Anderton, Douglas L. (
1989
). Comment on Knodel’s ‘Starting, Stopping and Spacing during the Early Stages of Fertility Transition.’
. Demography
, 26
(3
), 467
–70
. 10.2307/2061605Bongaarts, John, & Potter, Robert G. (
1983
). Fertility, Biology and Behavior: An Analysis of the Proximate Determinants
. New York
: Academic Press
.Das Gupta, Prithwis (
1985
). Future Fertility of Women by Present Age and Parity: Analysis of American Historical Data, 1917–1980
. Current Population Report Series P23, Special Studies
, 142
, 1
–63
.Das Gupta, Prithwis (
1991
). Decomposition of the Difference between Two Rates and Its Consistency When More Than Two Populations Are Involved
. Mathematical Population Studies
, 3
(2
), 105
–25
. 10.1080/08898489109525329Das Gupta, Prithwis, & Long, John F. (
1985
). Ultimate Parity Distribution and Mean Age at Childbearing by Birth Order for American Women: 1917–1980
. Proceedings of IUSSP International Population Conference
, 4
, 219
–28
.Day, Lincoln H. (
1958
). Age of Women at Completion of Childbearing
. Public Health Reports
, 73
(6
), 525
–31
.Day, Lincoln H. (
1986
). The Age of Women at Completion of Childbearing: Australian Differentials by Religion and Country of Birth
. Population Studies
, 40
, 237
–43
. 10.1080/0032472031000142046Fallo-Mitchell, Linda, & Ryff, Carol D. (
1982
). Preferred Timing of Female Life Events
. Research on Aging
, 4
(2
), 249
–67
. 10.1177/0164027582004002006Glick, Paul C., & Parke, Robert (
1965
). New Approaches in Studying the Life Cycle of the Family
. Demography
, 2
, 187
–202
. 10.2307/2060113Heuser, Robert L. (
1976
). Fertility Tables for Birth Control by Color: United States, 1917–1973
. Washington, DC
: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
.Home, A. Dale, EI-Khorazaty, Mohammed, & Suchindran, C.M. (
1990
). Statistical Modeling of Selected Aspects of the Childbearing Process with Application to World Fertility Survey Countries
. Mathematical Population Studies
, 2
, 183
–207
. 10.1080/08898489009525306Knodel, John (
1987
). Starting, Stopping, and Spacing during the Early Stages of Fertility Transition: The Experience of German Village Populations in the 18th and 19th Centuries
. Demography
, 24
, 143
–62
. 10.2307/2061627Koo, Helen P., Suchindran, C.M., & Griffith, Janet D. (
1987
). The Completion of Childbearing: Change and Variation in Timing
. Journal of Marriage and the Family
, 49
, 281
–93
. 10.2307/352300McDonald, Peter (
1984
). Nuptiality and Completed Fertility: A Study of Starting, Stopping and Spacing Behavior
. Voorbug, The Netherlands
: International Statistical Institute
.McDonald, Peter, & Knodel, John (
1989
). The Impact of Changes in Birth Spacing on Age at Last Birth: A Response to Anderton
. Demography
, 26
(3
), 471
–72
. 10.2307/2061606Pandey, Arvind and C.M. Suchindran. 1988. “Modeling Fertility with Mortality as a Competing Risk: An Application.” Proceedings of the General Meetings of the American Statistical Association, Social Statistics Section:127–33.
Rindfuss, Ronald R., & Bumpass, Larry L. (
1976
). How Old Is Too Old? Age and the Sociology of Fertility
. Family Planning Perspectives
, 8
(5
), 226
–30
. 10.2307/2134315Ryder, Norman B. (
1969
). The Emergence of a Modem Fertility Pattern: United States 1917–66
. In J.J. Behrman, Leslie Corsa, & Ronald Freedman (Eds.), Fertility and Family Planning
(pp. 99
–123
). Ann Arbor
: University of Michigan Press
.Ryder, Norman B. (
1979
). Components of Temporal Variations in American Fertility
. In R.W. Horns (Ed.), Demographic Patterns in Developed Societies
(pp. 15
–54
). London
: Taylor and Francis
.Ryder, Norman B. (
1986
). Observations on the History of Cohort Fertility in the United States
. Population and Development Review
, 12
(4
), 617
–43
. 10.2307/1973429Sheps, Mindel C., & Menken, Jane A. (
1973
). Mathematical Models of Conception and Birth
. Chicago
: University of Chicago Press
.Spanier, Graham B., & Glick, Paul C. (
1980
). The Life Cycle of American Families: An Expanded Analysis
. Journal of Family History
, 51
, 97
–111
. 10.1177/036319908000500105Stein, Zena A. (
1985
). A Woman’s Age: Childbearing and Child Rearing
. American Journal of Epidemiology
, 121
(3
), 327
–42
.© Population Association of America 1992
1992
