Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility in Spain during the Twentieth Century

David Reher, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Miguel Requena, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

It is known that historically fertility tends to be correlated between generations of the same family. These links tend to be explained either in terms of the biogenetic determinants of reproduction or in terms of intra-familial values associated with reproduction and family life. Less is known about the micro-determinants of these links or about the extent to which the progressive modernization of reproductive outcomes over the past century has affected behavior. In this paper, we will address these issues for Spain thanks to the appearance of four different data sources about reproduction over the past 125 years. These sources are: (1) record linkage data for the town of Aranjuez in central Spain including cohorts born between 1891 and 1945; (2) the Encuesta Sociodemógrafica (SDS) carried out in 1991 and including data on cohorts born between 1900 and 1949; (3) the recent Baby Boom and Bust Survey (BBBS) dated 2012 with data on cohorts born 1913-1954; and finally (4) the 2018 Fertility Survey (FS). While the size of these different data sources varies considerably and there is an evident overlap of cohorts, all of them include data on the number of children ever born and the number of siblings for any given ego. They provide a unique perspective that enable us to address the same issue over the long twentieth century, a period of enormous demographic, economic and social change. They also enable us to explore the micro determinants of fertility at different points of time during this period. Our initial results are promising, indicating the existence of a significant correlation between intergenerational reproductive outcomes that persists throughout this period of demographic change.

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 Presented in Session 45. Long Term Studies on Intergenerational Effects on Mobility and Fertility