Please join the ANU School of Demography as Professor Frank Bongiorno officially launches Dr Helen Moyle’s new book Australia’s Fertility Transition: A study of 19th-century Tasmania.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Australia, like other English-speaking countries and countries in Western Europe, experienced a remarkable fertility transition. In Australia, for women born in the late 1840s, the most common number of children was 8, while 20 years later, it was 3.

This book investigates the fall of fertility in Tasmania during this period, using both quantitative and qualitative data. For the statistical analysis, the author reconstructed family birth histories using Tasmanian registration data and many other sources. The qualitative data include witness statements from the 1903 NSW Royal Commission into the Fall in the Birth Rate.

The book concludes that the fertility transition took place during a period of economic and social transformation, including major social changes in the role and status of women. Women were the driving force behind the Australian fertility decline.

Dr Helen Moyle completed her PhD in the School of Demography at the ANU. She was awarded the CASS PhD Publishing Prize in 2019.

Please register to attend: admin.demography.cass@anu.edu.au

The book is available to download for free or hard copies can be purchased here.