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Later, if ever: Family influences on the transition from first to second birth in Soviet Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2016

YULIYA HILEVYCH
YULIYA HILEVYCH*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Science, Wageningen University.
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

What was the role of the family in individual reproductive decisions during state socialism? Can the family help to understand regional variations in fertility decline? This study provides an in-depth analysis of family relationships and their influences on individual reproductive decisions during the transition from first to second birth in Soviet Ukraine. Life history interviews are used to compare the western and eastern borderland cities of Lviv and Kharkiv, respectively, around 1950–1975. The findings reveal that regional differences in intergenerational ties and spousal cooperation shaped two reproductive strategies of transition to second birth, specifically postponing in Kharkiv and spacing in Lviv.

Plus tard, si c’est le cas: l’influence familiale sur la transition entre première et deuxième naissance en ukraine soviétique

Quel était le rôle de la famille dans les décisions individuelles en matière de reproduction sous le régime socialiste ? La famille peut-elle aider à comprendre les variations régionales de baisse de la fécondité? La présente étude apporte une analyse en profondeur des relations familiales et de leur influence sur les décisions prises par les individus en matière de reproduction, au cours de la période de transition entre première et deuxième naissance en Ukraine soviétique. Elle repose sur des interviews biographiques: les histoires de vie servent à comparer deux villes frontalières, l’une occidentale, l’autre orientale, que sont respectivement Lvov et Kharkov, dans les années 1950−1975. Les résultats révèlent que ce sont les différences régionales dans les liens intergénérationnels d’un côté, et la coopération entre conjoints de l’autre qui modèlent deux types de stratégie de reproduction distinctes quand il s’agit d’envisager une seconde naissance: différer à Kharkov et espacer à Lvov.

Später, wenn überhaupt: einflüsse der familie auf den übergang von der ersten zur zweiten geburt in der sowjetischen ukraine

Welche Rolle spielte die Familie bei individuellen Reproduktionsentscheidungen während des Staatssozialismus? Kann die Familie uns helfen, regionale Unterschiede des Fruchtbarkeitsrückgangs zu verstehen? Diese Studie liefert eine gründliche Untersuchung von Familienbeziehungen und ihren Einflüssen auf individuelle Reproduktionsentscheidungen beim Übergang von der ersten zur zweiten Geburt in der sowjetischen Ukraine. Mithilfe lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews werden die westlichen und östlichen Grenzstädte Lwiw und Charkiw im Zeitraum 1950–1975 untersucht. Die Befunde zeigen, dass die regionalen Unterschiede in den Bindungen zwischen den Generationen und in der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Ehepartnern zu zwei unterschiedlichen Reproduktionsstrategien für den Übergang zur zweiten Geburt führten: in Kharkiv wurde sie zurückgestellt, in Lviv dagegen der Geburtenabstand vergrößert.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , August 2016 , pp. 275 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

ENDNOTES

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4 For more on regional differences in Ukrainian fertility: see A. J. Coale, B. A. Anderson and E. Härm, Human fertility in Russia since the nineteenth century (Princeton, 1979).

5 For more on recent fertility trends in Ukraine: see Perelli-Harris, ‘Ukraine’, 1147.

6 Perelli-Harris, ‘The path’, 60–3; Steshenko, V., ‘Doslidzhennya narodzhuvanosti j plidnosti u realnyx pokolin zhinok Ukrayiny: vysnovky dlya sohodennya’, Demohrafiya ta socialna ekonomika (IDSD) 1, 13 (2010), 3–14Google Scholar.

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11 See also Gupta, M. Das, ‘Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: social and demographic implications of stem and joint families’, Social Science & Medicine 49, 2 (1999), 173–84Google Scholar; G. Therborn, Between sex and power: family in the world 1900–2000 (London, 2004); E. Todd, The explanation of ideology: family structures and social systems (Oxford, 1985); Viazzo, ‘Family, kinship’, 139–44.

12 Perelli-Harris, ‘Ukraine’, 1157.

13 Bernardi, L., ‘Channels of social influence on reproduction’, Population Research and Policy Review 22, 5–6 (2003), 427–555Google Scholar; L. Bernardi, ‘Close kin influences on fertility behaviour’, in Grandits, Heady, Kohli and Schweitzer eds., Family, kinship and state in contemporary Europe, 177–201; Rossier, C. and Bernardi, L., ‘Social interaction effects on fertility: intentions and behaviors’, European Journal of Population 25, 4 (2009), 467–85Google Scholar. For a recent overview of social influences on individual fertility behaviour: see Bernardi, L. and Klärner, A., ‘Social networks and fertility’, Demographic Research 30 (2014), 641–70Google Scholar.

14 I spent ten months conducting fieldwork in July–August 2012, March–May 2013, August–November 2013, and February 2014 in both cities. During October 2014–April 2015, 20 interviews were conducted with the help of a research assistant in Kharkiv. The socio-demographic profile of the research assistant is similar to mine – a female PhD student in her mid-twenties – despite the fact that she originates from eastern Ukraine, and I come from western Ukraine. Recruitment of a research assistant was not in the original planning, and it was mainly necessary due to the unstable political situation in eastern Ukraine in 2014. However, coming from the relevant cultural background allowed us to build trust with the informants more easily during the fieldwork.

15 Both samples are purposeful in their nature; however, while the former, which is also called chain sampling, is applied to search for a possible interview subject through the previous informants, the later sampling technique is applied to search for potential informants through other sources, which allowed me to collect interviews from different networks of people. See M. Q. Patton, Qualitative evaluation and research methods (California, 1990), 182.

16 Hilevych, Y., ‘Abortion and gender relationships in Ukraine, 1955–1970’, The History of the Family 20, 1 (2015), 86–105Google Scholar.

17 More on LHC: see W. G. Axin and L. D. Pearce, Mixed method data collection strategies (Cambridge, 2006), 261–89.

18 Rosenthal, G., ‘Reconstruction of life stories: principles of selection in generating stories for narrative biographical interviews’, The Narrative Study of Lives 1, 1 (1993), 59–91Google Scholar; G. Rosenthal, ‘The narrated life story: on the interrelation between experience, memory and narration’, in K. Milnes, C. Horrocks, N. Kelly, B. Roberts and D. Robinson, eds., Narrative, memory and knowledge: representations, aesthetics and contexts (Huddersfield, 2006), 1–16.

19 J. Saldaña, The coding manual for qualitative researchers (Padstow, 2009), 66–70.

20 Ibid., 89–93, 133–8.

21 The results of the largest study comparing western and eastern Ukraine are presented in: Hrytsak, Y., Portnov, A. and Sysak, V. eds., ‘Lviv – Doneck: sociyalni identychnosti v suchasnij Ukrayini. Speciyalnyj vypusk’, Ukraina Moderna 12, 2 (2007), 27–60Google Scholar.

22 H. Bodnar, Lviv: shhodenne zhyttya mista ochyma pereselenciv iz sil (50–80-ti roky XX st.) (Lviv, 2010), 41.

23 Y. Hrytsak, ‘The history of two cities: Lviv and Donetsk in comparative perspective’, in Hrytsak et al., ‘Lviv – Doneck’, 41.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 44.

26 Bodnar, Lviv, 269; Hrytsak, ‘The history’, 41; Perelli-Harris, ‘Ukraine’, 1157.

27 Bodnar, Lviv, 269.

28 Ibid,. 255.

29 S. Behej, ‘Peredacha ta podil spadshhyny v selyans″kyx rodynax Halychyny v XIX – 30-tyx rokax XX st.’ (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, 2003).

30 Kaser argues that the stem family in Eastern Europe was different from that in the Pyrenees or North-Eastern Japan, mainly due to neolocal post-marital residence, but yet with equal and partible inheritance. See K. Kaser, ‘The stem family in Eastern Europe: cross-cultural and trans-temporal perspectives’, in I. Baluta, C. Vintila-Ghitulescu and M.-R. Ungureanu eds., Social behaviour and family strategies in the Balkans (16th and 20th centuries) (Bucharest, 2006), 251–72; Kaser, K., ‘Introduction: household and family context in Balkans’, The History of the Family 1, 4 (1996), 375–86Google Scholar.

31 Scholars indicate that the persistence of traditional and complex family structures and the cultural model of communal life in urban areas in Russia and Ukraine were linked to the massive rural-urban migration after the Second World War. The peasant communal model fit into the urban life because Soviet ideology promoted communal support practices. See D. Bertaux and M. Malysheva, ‘The cultural model of the Russian popular classes and the transition to a market economy’, in D. Bertaux, Paul Thompson and Anna Rotkirch eds., On living through Soviet Russia (London, 2004), 40; A. Blum, ‘Socialist families?’, in D. I. Kertzer and M. Barbagli eds., Family life in the twentieth century (Yale, 2003), 224.

32 T. Pikalova, ‘Kharkov v sredine 50-nachale 90-h godov: Naselenie goroda’, in N. Fomina ed., Istorija goroda Kharkova 20 stoletija (Kharkov, 2004), 452–57.

33 Rachkov, E., ‘Vplyv mihracijnyx procesiv na zminy chisel″nosti naselennya Kharkivs″koyi oblasti u druhij polovyni XX-na pochatku XXI st. (za danymy zanahal″nyx perepysiv naselennya 1959–2001 rr.)’, Aktual″ni problemy vitchyznyanoyi ta vsesvitn″oyi istoriyi 14 (2011), 213Google Scholar.

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35 O. Kravec, Simejnyj pobut i zvychayi ukrfyins“koho narodu: istoryko-etnohrafichnyj narys (Kyiv, 1963); Kaser, K., ‘Power and inheritance: male domination, property, and family in Eastern Europe, 1500–1900’, The History of the Family 7, 3 (2002), 375–95Google Scholar.

36 Kravec, Simejnyj, 160.

37 Perelli-Harris, ‘Ukraine’, 1157.

38 Lapidus, ‘Women in Soviet society’, 123.

39 N. Vinokurova, ‘Reprivatizing women's lives: from Khrushchev to Brezhnev’, in R. Kay ed., Gender, equality and difference during and after state socialism (Basingstoke, 2007), 63–84; Lapidus, ‘Women in Soviet society’, 123–7.

40 Reid, S., ‘Cold war in the kitchen: gender and the de-Stalinization of consumer taste in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev’, Slavic Review 61, 2 (2002), 211–52Google Scholar; E. Carter, How German is she? Postwar West German reconstruction and the consuming woman (Ann Arbor, 1997), 45–75.

41 Lapidus, ‘Women in Soviet society’, 127.

42 Kharkiv State Archive (hereafter KSA), requested via email on 2 April 2014; H. Hyk ed., Lvivshhyna za roky Radyanskoyi vlady. Statystychnyj zbirnyk prysvyachenyj 70-richchyu Velykoyi Zhovtnevoyi socialistychnoyi revolyuciyi (Lviv, 1987), 193, 316.

43 Lvivshhyna za roky, 193

44 Lapidus, ‘Women in Soviet society’, 125–6.

45 Ibid., 126.

46 A. Chandler, ‘The social promise: rights, privileges and responsibilities in Russian welfare reform since Gorbachev’, in T. Lahusen, and P. H. Solomon eds., What is Soviet now?: identities, legacies, memories (Berlin, 2008), 207.

47 T. Pavlova, ‘Kharkov v period vosstanovlenija. Posle voennyj period. Zdravoohrinenie’, in N. Fomina ed., Istorija goroda Kharkova 20 stoletija (Kharkov, 2004), 416–22.

48 KSA, fond 5231, opis 15, delo 316, 5.

49 Lviv State Archive (hereafter LSA), f. 406, o. 2, d. 166, 9.

50 LSA, f. 312, o. 2, ds. 572, 30–1; F. Muratov and A. Shamraj eds., Radyanskij Lvivshhyni 30 rokiv: Zbirnyk dokumentiv i statystychnyx materialiv (Lviv, 1970), 198, 200.

51 Sobotka, T. and Beaujouan, É., ‘Two is best? The persistence of a two-child ideal in Europe’, Population and Development Review 40, 3 (2014), 391–419Google Scholar.

52 V. Steshenko, ‘Doslidzhennya narodzhuvanosti’, 3–14.

53 The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of children under the age of 1 per 1,000 live births.

54 ‘Infant mortality rates’, Demoscope weekly, http://demoscope.ru/weekly/app/app4009.php [updated 29 September 2015]; Demograficnuy shorichnyk 2007, 68; KSA, fund #5231, folder 9, case 1154, pp. 1–45.

55 Bernardi and Klärner, ‘Social networks’, 644–5.

56 Rotkirch and Kesseli, ‘Two children’, 150.

57 Ibid., 150; Perelli-Harris, ‘Ukraine’, 1161.

58 Interview with Vasilij, Kharkiv (11 November 2014).

59 Interview with Svetlana, Kharkiv (5 August 2012).

60 Blum, A., Sebille, P. and Zakharov, S., ‘A divergent transition to adulthood in France and Russia: a cohort approach’, Revue d'Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest 40, 3–4 (2009), 123–52Google Scholar.

61 Y. Hilevych, and P. P. P. Rotering. ‘Moederschap en sociale netwerken in Oekraïne, 1955–1965’, in Koen Matthijs, Paul Puschmann and Hilde Bras eds., Gender in/en demografie, Jaarboek demografie (Leuven, 2013), 209–32.

62 Interview with Viktor, Kharkiv (12 October 2012).

63 Hilevych, ‘Abortion’, 95–7.

64 Interview with Maria, Kharkiv (9 September 2014).

65 Hilevych and Rotering, ‘Moederschap’, 225.

66 Interview with Naida, Kharkiv (3 August 2012).

67 Hilevych, ‘Abortion’, 95.

68 Ibid., 97.

69 Bernardi and Klärner, ‘Social networks’, 645.

70 Interview with Naida, Kharkiv (3 August 2012).

71 Interview with Zoja, Kharkiv (4 August 2012).

72 Agadjanian, V., ‘Fraught with ambivalence: reproductive intentions and contraceptive choices in a sub-Saharan fertility transition’, Population Research and Policy Review 24, 6 (2005), 617–45Google Scholar, here 628.

73 Interview with Varvara, Kharkiv (5 December 2014).

74 Interview with Raisa, Kharkiv (9 November 2014).

75 Interview with Svetlana, Kharkiv (5 August 2012).

76 Interview with Fedir, Lviv (17 September 2013).

77 Interview with Oksana, Lviv (3 September 2013).

78 Interview with Svyatoslav, Lviv (8 October 2013).

79 Interview with Zoya, Lviv (5 October 2013).

80 Hilevych, ‘Abortion’, 93.

81 Interview with Petro, Lviv (5 October 2013).

82 Interview with Bohdana, Lviv (10 October 2013).

83 Hilevych, ‘Abortion’, 94–101.

84 Interview with Markian, Lviv (8 August 2013).

85 Interview with Natalka, Lviv (10 July 2012).

86 See Das Gupta, ‘Lifeboat’, 175–6.

87 Hilevych, ‘Abortion’, 97–100.

88 Agadjanian, ‘Fraught with ambivalence’, 617–45; Timæus, I. M. and Moultrie, T. A., ‘On postponement and birth intervals’, Population and Development Review 34, 3 (2008), 483–510Google Scholar.

89 Perelli-Harris, ‘The path’, 67–8.

90 See Das Gupta, ‘Lifeboat’, 174–5.

91 Agadjanian, ‘Fraught with ambivalence’, 617–45; Timæus and Moultrie, ‘On postponement and birth intervals’, 483–510.