The liberation also affected other family structure decisions, such as the marriage rate (Figure 2.5).19 Marriage and fertility decisions were strong- ly intertwined half-way 20th century Netherlands. Marriage took place whenever the couple gathered sufficient material and financial resources. Children were generally born in-wedlock,20i.e. within a marriage, and pre-
marital conceptions were followed by shotgun marriages such that the child was born in-wedlock. During WWII stark spikes in the number of marriages are visible in 1939, 1942 and 1946,21 whereas a similar trend deviation for fertility is only observed in 1946.22 Suggesting two types of behaviors that led to pregnancies in 1946. First, individuals who got married in 1939 and 1942 (and the years in between) delayed conceptions up until after the war. Second, the peak in marriages and fertility in 1946 suggest that premarital
the time, but the social stigma associated with a premarital conception followed by a marriage was completely different. For Catholics both types of premarital conceptions were unacceptable.
19The same Figure for the number of marriages is shown in Appendix Figure 2.A2. 20Out-wedlock births comprised only 2.5% of all births in 1946. The percentage of
out-wedlock births is lower in surrounding years (Statistics Netherlands).
21Regional data is missing for 1940, but on the country level a decrease in the number
of marriages is observed in 1940.
22The effect of an absence of men during war times on fertility, and hence perhaps
2.2. THE DUTCH BIRTH PEAK OF 1946 21
conceptions, occurring in the wave of post-war optimism, led to shotgun marriages.23 Given family formation norms in the Netherlands, it might
well be that shotgun marriages indicate that the conception may have been unanticipated. The fertility rise appeared for marriages of both shorter and longer duration which suggests that both mechanisms are at play (Van den Brink, 1950).
Figure 2.6 shows the trend in maternal age at first birth by region using the micro-data. Note that the line for the north excludes famine-affected areas, which are plotted separately. The trends look very similar before and after 1946 for the north and south. The trends in maternal age at first birth can be explained by economic uncertainty, where higher (lower) economic uncertainty leads to lower (higher) fertility (Becker, 1960; Ben- Porath, 1973; Lindo, 2010; Schaller, 2016). Maternal age at first birth was increasing up until the end of the war, which can be explained by the slow recovery from the Great Depression. Bad (socio-) economic circumstances complicate the process of marriage and childbearing as it is hard to gather sufficient financial and material resources when unemployed. The trends in maternal age at first birth reversed after the first post-war years. The economic circumstances were good after the war so there were no reasons to delay marriage. Female labor market participation increased, making it easier to obtain sufficient resources for marriage (Van Poppel and Willeken- s, 1982). This led to a decline in age at first birth of about two years in the after-war years (CBS, 2012).
23These shotgun marriages were quite common in the Netherlands, respectively 11.6%
and 13.4% of marriages in the marriage cohorts of 1945 and 1946 had a birth within 6 months after marriage (Van den Brink, 1950). Figure 2.A3 shows the higher incidence of out-wedlock conceptions after the liberation, which is driven the higher number of shotgun marriages.
What stands out in Figure 2.6 are the jumps in maternal age at first birth in 1946. Maternal age at first birth can be interpreted as an indicator for fertility delay as well as unanticipated pregnancies. Parents may have delayed their first birth until better times. At the same time, unanticipa- ted pregnancies are more likely to occur for single unmarried women, and hence in first birth. A jump in maternal age at first birth is expected for the 1946 birth cohort if women delay their first birth due to the war. This increase may be dampened by the occurrence of unanticipated pregnancies, which generally occur at lower ages.24 The increase is larger in the south,
which may be explained by smaller incidence of unanticipated pregnan- cies.25 Figure 2.7 shows the number of months between marriage and first
birth, which is another indicator for fertility delay. This difference will be larger after the liberation if married couples delayed their first birth. The difference is increasing up until 1945 for the south, which is consistent with their liberation in 1944. For the north, the difference in increasing up until 1946, which is also consistent with the end of the war in 1945. Suggesting that married couples did delay their first birth until better times.
Figure 2.8 shows the trends in maternal age at second birth by region. A jump in maternal age at second birth is visible in the north and south in the year after their respective liberations (i.e. 1945 for the south and 1946 for the north). Hence for second births, in which parents were probably already married, there is a fertility response in the year right after the liberation. Suggesting that parents delayed second births until better times, and given that they were already married they could start right away. This might
24Maternal age at first birth in 1946 is 4.7 years lower for shotgun marriages as opposed
to in-wedlock conceptions (22.8 versus 27.5) in the marital sample (P = 0.000).
25Also women in the south were on average older when having their first child, and
2.2. THE DUTCH BIRTH PEAK OF 1946 23
also explain the absence of a fertility response for first births in 1945 for the south. As mentioned before, the south had very conventional family formation norms at the time due to its mainly Catholic denomination. Suggesting that fertility is less responsive because children were conceived within marriage.
Together the evidence above illustrates that (a) the trends in fertility in north and south were very similar before 1945, (b) the fertility rise in the north was sudden, temporary, and of unprecedented magnitude, and (c) the trends in the marriage rate, maternal age at birth, and the timing from marriage to first birth suggest that both delayed fertility and unanticipated conceptions played a role during the Birth Peak.