Demand and supply factors in the fertility transition: a county-level analysis of age-specific marital fertility in Sweden, 1880-1930

This article studies the importance of demand and supply factors in the Swedish fertility transition using county-level data and panel regressions. Fertility started to decline around 1880 when marital fertility began a continuous decline. A gradual diffusion of parity-specific control was important in this process. The fertility of the oldest age groups declined fastest, even though the decline started in all age groups over 25 at about the same time. This development was connected to broader socioeconomic and demographic processes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as mortality decline, urbanisation, industrialisation and expansion of education.