Cohort fertility in France, 1830-1974

Fabienne Daguet, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE)

This paper describes the reproduction of female cohorts born from 1830 to 1974. Among these 145 cohorts, the reproduction rate remained nearly stable around one daughter per woman. As a result of the drop in mortality, fertility has become the main factor of cohort reproduction so that net and gross rates are converging in recent cohorts. Only a minority of cohorts - the cohorts born from 1920 to 1943 and, thanks to the baby boom, those born from 1956 to 1959 - have reached a net reproduction rate at birth at least equal to one daughter per woman. If we consider the reproduction rate at the age of 28, that is close to the mean age at childbirth, half of them have been reproduced. Almost every cohort, except those born during the two last decades of the XXth century, have reproduced their lived years.