First Demographic Transition in Austria 1869-1937

First demographic transition is still a passionate issue of national and international historical research. The Austrian territory has only marginally been concerned, as well by national as by international research. This project will try to close this gap. In international research also the Hajnal-thesis still is a passionate theme, discussed partially very controversely, like is demographic transition itself. This project will contribute to both topics, first demographic transition and Hajnal-thesis. Hajnal-thesis has been posed and discussed with a special regard to earlier times and does not concern the process and time of the first demographic transition directly. Since Hajnal-line is crossing the projects area of interest, covered by the Austrian provinces Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia and the Burgenland and the former Austrian territories of Stajerska, Krajnska/Carniola and Goricija (Slovenia) and Gorizia (Italy) the project will investigate the processes of first demographic transition in these area with a special regard to the Hajnal-thesis resp. the Hajnal-line. International historical demographic research either deals with very small units like villages or large units like countries or even states. This project will pose and prove his hypotheses on the base of the officially assembled and published statistical data on the level of Political districts as micro-regions. Due to the fact that the covered areas from Lower Austria in the north to Goricija/Gorizia in the south - where Hajnal-line finds its end - finally embed about 80 Political districts it is a self-evident challenge to search for distinct regional patterns (with the help of Cluster analysis) concerning the fundamental processes during first demographic transition as there are: fertility and mortality decline, slightly rising or not declining nuptiality, declining illegitimacy and celibacy. How did this patterns correlate with economic, social and cultural, even ethnical environmental structures?. To explain these patterns with the help of different theories (cultural theory, social-economic theory, epidemiological theory etc.), to prove the explanatory power of these theories concerning first demographic transition, to define their contribution to the appearance of regional patterns and to clear the question if these patterns have anything to do with Hajnal- line are the main subjects of this project. The result cannot be an approval or disproval of Hajnal-line as it is drawn, since it concerns even earlier periods than the second half of 19th and beginning 20th century and since the project will not deal with nominative data, revealing marriage and household patterns as core of Hajnal-thesis in detail. But there are some indicators embedded in micro-regionally aggregated data, revealing household patterns; as indicators especially can serve the social categories of occupational positions (worker, owner, helping family member, supported relative etc.) per occupational class (agriculture e.a.) as used in the Austrian censuses. The project does not start with a single theory, but with a somehow contingent preference for social-economic arguments within the frame of cultural, possibly even ethnical structures in order to explain different reginal patterns of demographic transition.

The main results of the FWF-project P 21157-G15, called GAFP-Graz Austrian Fertility project are related to a better understanding of the 1st Demografic Transition process in the former Habsburg crownlands of Lower Austria (incl. Vienna as an own case) , Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Gorizia, Trieste and Istria (1869-1913) and the later Austrian provinces of Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia and the Burgenland (1918-1937). In scientific research this region between the East and the West was less respected or on a high provincial aggregation level only (state, crownlands). This project used data on the level of Political Districts, available in the so-called Austrian Statistics, a series, edited by the states administration and depicting a lot of data on demography, economy, education etc The main questions had been: why and how did fertility decline - or even not -, how did fertile behaviour change, how did marriage behaviour and finally mortality change in this period from the mid 19th century up to the end of the First Republic of Austria? The low fertility, complained today, as a consequence of the so-called 2nd Demografic transition since the end of the Baby-Boom (since the late 1960s), had a forerunner in the period investigated and fertility never ever reached the high level given in the last decades of 19th century. Fertility decline and mortality decline (especially infant and child mortality until the age of 5), as the main issues of this 1st Demographic Transition have been part of modernization process and are not interpretable without this strong connection. Modernization means urbanisation, scientification, industrialization, de-agrarisation, medicalisation and increased life expectancy, capitalisation and the changing to a market-oriented economy. Modernization means new options for everybody yet new challenges also, and this was the background for different kinds of fertility behavior in different regions, economic and social lifesytiles during this period. How did fertility behaviour change? First of all we have to talk about marital fertility. We can differentiate two types of fertility decline, namely a gross and a net decline. A gross decline in fertility led to a stable number of surviving children in a family, when faced with a remarkable decline in infant and child mortality. To realize a gross fertility decline it was necessary to use birth control. We want to call this way the traditional one, because the aim obviously was to avoid an increasing number of surviving children, considered not affordable by the family economy (traditional costs). The social groups resp. layers affected had been the agrarians, and among them the smaller ones especially. The second way of fertility decline was a net decline and led to a decrease in the number of surviving children per family. We want to call this way the modern one and the aim obviously was to feed and to provide less children better, to avoid capital dilution among more children. New requirements appeared among potential parents for advanced feeding, medical care and education of and for the children. This kind of decline resp.change in fertility behavior is also called the quantity-quality turn (additional costs). Yet we can observe also an increase in gross or/and net fertility, in the way of a temporary ski-jump or as a so-called natural way, considering children a natural good, affordable especially in better times (lower prices, higher income, no accidental crisis like plagues, famine or wars). After WW I the regional differences disappeared and more general patterns became dominant, namely a strong but short increase in fertility after 1918 until 1921 as a compensational effect after wartimes and a sharp decline in the 1920s and 1930s, when higher aspirations and an increasing unemployment collided.