There is growing awareness – and concern – about declining birth rates in the United States and other countries around the world. Falling...
There is growing awareness – and concern – about declining birth rates in the United States and other countries around the world.
Falling birth rates are usually seen as a sign of societal decline, a nation’s diminishing power and the eclipse of marriage and family values. Rarely are they put into any kind of historical context. But birthrates are cyclical and have gone up and down throughout history.
While some people might assume that the decision to have a child is a personal or private one, individuals and couples also respond to external forces. Economic, social and cultural factors heavily influence birth rates. As a historian who has researched the uptick of single people in the 17th and 18th centuries, I am familiar with how governments and societies have traditionally responded to low marriage and birth rates with various persuasion techniques.
In the 1690s, England and France entered into a 120-year period of continuous hot and cold warfare. The two nations were also superpowers that engaged in trade, established colonies and fought wars on multiple continents.
Maintaining healthy population numbers was a top concern, seen as a crucial element for ensuring economic and military might. So each country advanced a number of pronatalist strategies to encourage marriage and births.
Marriage rates
In the 17th century – a period when marriage and fertility...
