1. Objectifs

Intentions :
The authors « examine the role of culture in local [Montreal] demographic behavior. » (p. 207)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
« We combine a newly available nominal census of 1881 with data from parish registers. » (p. 209)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

« Using the newly available [...] data for 1881, we can now confirm that religious difference alone does not ‘explain’ differences in marital fertility in terms of the conventional age-adjusted measures, nor differences in ‘stopping’ behavior. These are the terms in which the fertility transition has generally been discussed. That perspective seems to us too narrow, and we propose to expand the terms in two ways. First, we extend our interpretation of fertility to embrace all the behaviors that affect rates of reproduction of the community. Second, we consider religious affiliation as one point of reference among many in the construction of individual and group identities. If we thus expand both terms - fertility and identity - we will discover the pertinence of the religious allegiances and institutions that policed group boundaries. With this line of argument in mind, we begin with a short account of the samples and methods of analysis. We review the local evidence for the impact of distinctive start-up behaviors on differential reproductive rates, and from a set of logistic regressions we demonstrate the impact of economic and cultural variables on entering into marriage and on having a baby. We follow this with a discussion of the various ways in which religious differences may have contributed to the persistence of distinct demographic regimes and the stubborn coexistence, in a single city [Montreal], of distinct understandings of family, distinct expectations of married life, and distinct aspirations of being grown-up. » (pp. 209-210)