Peter Gossage

Canadian Fertility Transitions: Quebec and Ontario at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This article uses nominal data from the Canadian Families Project national sample to analyze and compare fertility in Canada’s two largest provinces at the turn of the twentieth century. The authors argue that material and cultural factors must be considered if similarities and differences in reproductive behavior between Quebec and Ontario are to be understood. They use regression models to identify the independent influence of factors such as religion, language, occupation, class, urban versus rural residence, and literacy on marital child-woman ratios in the two provinces. Fertility levels in Quebec were about 50 percent higher than those in Ontario, where a very conspicuous downward trend had begun by the 1870s. But Quebec fertility in this period was not as monolithically high as some authors—and much of the province’s popular culture—would suggest. Nor did Quebec fail entirely to “turn the contraceptive corner” in the decades after 1871.

Demography and discourse in transition:: Quebec Fertility at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This article is part of a broader research project which seeks to shed new light on Quebecs fertility decline between the 1850s and the 1950s, notably by breaking down barriers between cultural and economic explanations and between quantitative and qualitative analysis. It explores relationships between demographic trends and the public discourse around reproduction in the province at the turn of the twentieth century. Using a collection of articles selected from French-language periodicals published between 1870 and 1920, the article analyzes the reactions of certain public commentators to the prospect of fertility decline in this traditionally prolific province. They identify a shift in the public discussion of fertility in Quebec during World War I. Pride in and celebration of Quebecs large families was superseded in the dominant nationalist discourse by anxiety about diminished rates of reproduction and natalist exhortations to women who might be tempted to restrict their fertility. After documentin...

»Empêcher la famille« : Fécondité et contraception au Québec, 1920-60

L’évolution à la baisse de la taille des familles à partir de la fin du XIXe siècle au Quebec ne peut s’être produite que parce que les couples d’alors ont utilisé des moyens pour limiter la taille de leur descendance. Dans un effort pour mieux comprendre cette evolution, le présent article met à profit la richesse des approches qualitative et quantitative pour explorer les questions suivantes: moyens de contraception utilisés, facteurs liés au recours à la contraception, motifs invoqués en faveur ou a l’encontre de celle-ci, dynamique du processus de décision au sein du couple. L’information utilisée concerne essentiellement la période allant de 1920 à 1960; elle provient de deux corpus d’enquêtes orales réalisées respectivement à Montreal et au Saguenay, ainsi que de l’Enquête de fecondité du Quebec de 1971. L’analyse de ces données laisse entrevoir l’impact de facteurs à la fois démographiques (rapidité de constitution de la famille), socioéconomiques (catégorie socioprofessionnelle du mari) et culturels (éducation, religion) qui interviennent à différents niveaux, individuel et collectif, où se joue cette importante révolution des comportements.