The first demographic transition changed the face of the western world as thoroughly as did the Industrial Revolution. As couples began to have fewer children, women were released from the heavy burden of endless pregnancies and extended periods of child care. Even though this profound process of change has been extensively researched, women were rarely pictured as decision-makers concerning fertility and family. Moreover, men and women were mostly not perceived as having potentially differing interests in sexuality and child-bearing. This volume contains papers delivered at the conference...

Labouring Lives unravels the huge changes which have so fundamentally altered the life courses of ordinary women over the past one hundred and fifty years, namely the changes in marriage and fertility patterns. Using dynamic data from Dutch population registers and analytical techniques from the life course approach, the book offers new evidence on women s changing position in the labour market, their role in pre-nuptial sexuality, and their contribution to marriage and fertility change in the Netherlands between 1880 and 1960. The author reconstructs the socio-economic and demographic...