The declining birth rate in Rotterdam : a statistical analysis of the drop in the number of children in 24 644 Rotterdam families during the last 50 years

Introduction 1 General Survey 3 Chapter I. Number of children and profession 9 II. Number of children and religion . 15 III. Number of children, profession and religion. In the years after the war the problem of population and especially the birth-rate movements excited general interest in all countries. In the Netherlands also all kinds ot scientific men occupied themselves with this subject; not only economists, sociologists and theologians but also medical men studied the population problem in all its various aspects. It has appeared that it is only possible to obtain a complete analysis of the population problem by making a careful scientific investigation of every part of it. Evidently this was also the author's conception of the problem. By examining 25000 families he submitted the birth-rate movement of a large town to a scientific investigation. Neither political nor religious or other than scientific motives prompted him in undertaking this work; the examination was begun and ended quite objectively which lends this book its value. For only an objective examination of s~tch a complex phe nomenon like the birth-rate movement is of importance for science. The examination was inspired by the working program of the I nterna tional Union for the scientific Investigation of Population Problems. It produces surprising results and shows in figures how natality presented itself in a metropolis like Rotterdam during the last fifty years. It is to be hoped that this study may be followed by many similar in vestigations, also for the country Front Matter....Pages I-XI Introduction....Pages 1-2 General Survey....Pages 3-8 Number of Children and Professions....Pages 9-14 Number of Children and Religion....Pages 15-18 Number of Children, Profession and Religion....Pages 19-30 Number of Children, Profession and Year of Marriage....Pages 31-42 Number of Children, Religion and Year of Marriage....Pages 43-56 Number of Children, Year of Marriage and Duration of Marriage....Pages 57-72 Number of Children and Age at Marriage....Pages 73-79 Number of Surviving Children, Marriage Year and Duration of Marriage....Pages 80-90 Small Families and the System of Substitution....Pages 91-95 The Children’s Religion Compared with the Parents’ Religion in the Mixed Marriages....Pages 96-102 The Interval of Time between the Date of the Marriage and the Date of the First Child’s Birth in Connection with Profession, Religion and Year of Marriage....Pages 103-118 Conclusion....Pages 119-123 Back Matter....Pages 125-179