Changing Pattems of Fertility in the South: A Social-Demographic Examination*

This paper examines the trend in the fertility difference between the South and the remainder of the United States—a differential which has existed since colonial tinfes. The paper begins with a consideration of the reasons why there might be a regional fertility differential. The rest of the paper examines the trend in this differential. It is found that the long-standing higher fertility of the South, relative to the rest of the country, has ceased. But this does not mean that the differential has disappeared. The South currently has lower levels of fertility than the non-South, and this is because southerners prefer fewer children than nonsoutherners. Regional fertility differences in the United States have long been recog-nized. This has resulted in region being used routinely as a control variable when examining various aspects of fertility. It has also resulted in some researchers restricting themselves to collecting survey data for one geo-graphical area in order to avoid regional variation (e.g., Masnick and McFalls). Yet sociologists, at least in the recent past, have given littie direct attention to regional differences in fertility (or to regional differences in other social phenomena as well). Perhaps this is so because the regional fertility question is such a perplexing one: why is there or should there be a regional fertility differential? In many ways the question goes to the heart of the sociology of fertility, because it asks for the social reasons for differences in fertility between two aggregaten. This paper examines th