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High-Risk Childbearing: Fertility and Infant Mortality on the American Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Lee L. Bean ,
Geraldine P. Mineau  and
Douglas L. Anderton
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Extract

Historical analyses of demographic phenomena from the past few decades have provided new insights requiring the reassessment of a number of traditional paradigms, such as the venerable demographic transition theory. Fertility studies have dominated this research, but there is a growing interest in the interrelationships of several demographic variables, such as family formation and infant mortality (Knodel and Hermalin 1984; Nault et al. 1990; Potter 1988a; Working Group on the Health Consequences of Contraceptive Use and Controlled Fertility 1989a, 1989b). This article falls into the latter category; in it we investigate the relationship between childbearing (fertility) and infant mortality in the Utah frontier population during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Type
Family and Demography
Information
Social Science History , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Fall 1992 , pp. 337 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1992 

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