Colonization and Counterculture: Utah’s Fertility Contexts

• In Event: 20816 - Fertility Patterns in Economic and Cultural Context

Abstract

Aggregated religious fertility analyses provide useful descriptions of endogenous and exogenous organizational dynamics. I propose that attributions of declining fertility within religious communities to decreasing religious salience produce unnecessary tautologies and contradictions. Instead, I advance a framework that emphasizes religious fertility patterns as emergent phenomena of social need, group objectives, and resources. As an illustration, I offer a demographic analysis of maternal parity in 19th and early 20th century Utah. Here, population fertility declines across time in a manner not explained by decreasing interest in religion. Rather, the studied patterns better reflect an adaptable religious identity, built through the pragmatic alignment of social restraints and group objectives, and supported through community approaches. A discussion concerning a more flexible framework to advance religion and fertility examinations ends this study.

 

Author

• Jason Paul Bonham, University of Chicago