Trends in cohort fertility of the Dariusleut Hutterite population.
A church book containing vital information on Dariusleut Hutterite families enabled us to trace the life course of individual women. We conducted a retrospective cohort study on the women born in the Dariusleut sect for the period 1901-1965, focusing on their marriage and reproductive histories. The subjects were grouped into 5-year birth cohorts from 1901-1905 to 1961-1965. The marital age-specific fertility rate (MASFR) increased from the 1901-1905 cohort to the 1926-1930 cohort and then began to decrease, particularly at the ages of 30-39 years. The initial increase in MASFR was not reflected directly in the cohort mean of the total number of children per woman because of a concurrent delay in age at marriage. Marriage delay, however, could not explain the drastic decrease, which started in the 1931-35 cohort, in the total number of children per woman; the decrease in MASFR at the ages of 30 years and older was considered a major reason for the recent changes in Hutterite fertility. The causes of the recent fertility decrease of Hutterites at higher ages remain to be investigated.
Department of Hygiene, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
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Sato
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Nonaka
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Miura
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Peter
D000328:Adult; D001723:Birth Rate / Q000208:ethnology*; D002835:Christianity; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003268:Contraception Behavior; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D006801:Humans; D008393:Marriage; D008423:Maternal Age; D008875:Middle Aged; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States