Finnish Fertility Since 1722 Lessons from an Extended Decline

An analysis of fertility trends in Finland since 1722 is presented. The emphasis is on the macro-level, but consideration is also given to the micro-level family reconstruction approach and to the qualitative social historical approach. "Methodologically this analysis goes beyond previous studies in developing a model for reconstructing 18th and 19th century marriage patterns, modifying the index of family limitation in a way to use overall age-specific rates instead of marital ones, applying distributed-lag models to the analysis of the interactions between fertility and child mortality, and using multi-variate techniques to analyze short term and long term determinants of fertility trends." (Excerpt).