Abstract

In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological case studies, placing them in a comparative framework of compositional demography and conjunctural action.  The volume addresses major issues of inequality and distribution which shape population and social structures, and in which fertility trends and the formation and size of families are not decided solely or primarily by reproduction.

Philip Kreager is Senior Research Fellow in Human Sciences, Somerville College; Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology; and Reseach Associate, Department of Sociology, Oxford University. He has written extensively on the history and conceptual development of population theory and analysis in European culture, and on comparative family systems and anthropological demography.

“Outstanding. This volume follows in a distinct lineage of both historically and anthropologically-informed critical studies of the demographic analysis of fertility decline and reproductive change. It is an excellent addition to that corpus of work.” · Simon Szreter, St John’s College, Cambridge

Astrid Bochow is Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Georg August Univeristät Göttingen, and Associate of the Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University.