Intergenerational transmission of relative fertility and life course patterns.

This paper addresses the issue of the relationship of fertility between successive generations over the course of a 19th-century frontier fertility transition. Intergenerational event histories are used to explore the relationships between mothers' and daughters' completed family size. Results suggest that daughters' fertility levels are responsive to their mothers' relative fertility and age at marriage (as compared with mother's contemporaries). Effects of exposure to a number of younger siblings, controlling for cohort biases, are also examined. A multivariate proportional hazard analysis of daughter's age at marriage and parity-specific birth intervals demonstrates the direct and indirect effects of intergenerational fertility associations on fertility timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]