The Second Demographic Transition in Western Countries: An Interpretation

Abstract The direction of Western family changes since the 1960s is well known. During the initial phase, roughly between 1955 and 1970, there were three major components of change. First, the already upward divorce trend accelerated considerably. Second, the baby boom came to an end. Fertility declined at all ages and marriage durations simultaneously. These trends coincided with the contraceptive revolution, based on new hormonal contraceptives and the rediscovery of the intra-uterine device. Third, the decline in ages at marriage, which had started between 1880 and 1920 in most Western countries, stopped. Instead, the proportion of marriages occurring before the age of 25 dropped considerably. Near the end of the 1960s, several countries also experienced a temporary increase in shotgun marriages: premarital sex had been on the increase throughout the 1960s, and contraceptive protection in such relations was not yet efficient enough. In most countries this feature disappeared during the early 1970s. In others, a problem of teenage pregnancy persisted.