Abstract
The transition from the baby boom to the baby bust has never been studied with a particular focus on the increase in the relative costs of children. This article uses this explanation and applies it to Lausanne and Fribourg, two Swiss cities characterized by different institutional contexts and by strikingly divergent trends in terms of fertility. This article conjectures that new rights for children and models of parenthood that appeared during the 1960s increased the cost of child rearing and are key explanations for the transition from the baby boom to the baby bust.
This article studies the transition from the baby boom to the baby bust in two closely located yet very different cities in Switzerland between 1955 and 1970. This period witnessed a remarkable homogenization of reproductive behaviors on a national level. Whereas the levels of fertility differed significantly across Swiss cities before the onset of the baby bust, such levels tended to converge by 1975. 1 This homogenization has never been investigated in depth. Schumacher, Oris, and Lerch posited that the diffusion of norms into the public sphere could account for the homogenization of reproductive behaviors. 2 This article finds support for this hypothesis by showing that the increase in the perceived relative costs of child rearing stemming from the diffusion of new norms related to new definitions of the rights of children and of models of parenthood is a key explanation for this transition. Adapting to new norms entailed not only monetary costs but also social costs (i.e., the costs of conforming to norms) and opportunity costs (i.e., the costs of foregoing an alternative to pursue professional opportunities).
This article documents the diffusion of new norms that emerged as a response to the changes in the socioeconomic context of both cities under study. A large body of literature has shown that the costs of child rearing are largely determined by the socioeconomic context. 3 This article exploits an ideal laboratory from that perspective: the study compares Fribourg and Lausanne, two Swiss cities separated by only sixty kilometers but characterized by heterogeneous socioprofessional structures. In Protestant Lausanne, the tertiary sector became the main economic sector during the period under investigation, while the secondary and tertiary sectors became of equal importance in Catholic Fribourg. These changes in the socioprofessional structures generated uncertainty as to the best way for parents to maximize their children’s opportunities to succeed in this new environment. As a result, parents either derived recipes for successful child rearing by observing best practices in higher social classes, that is, social learning theory, 4 or inferred them based on newly emerging laws and practical guidelines conveyed in newspaper articles, the latter must be considered as an attempt to adapt to these changes in the socioeconomic context.
At first sight, the fertility trends in both cities appear to contradict the idea that the perceived costs and rewards 5 arising from socioeconomic contexts are relevant to demographic outcomes. Indeed, notwithstanding their profound differences, the two cities experienced similar decreases in fertility from 1965 to 1975. This article argues that individuals’ adaptation to these new norms with respect to models of parenthood and rights for children was a sufficiently potent mechanism to annihilate the effect of local specificities. However, this study shows that the local context is relevant to the extent that it determines the channel through which these new norms became widespread and eventually the mechanisms through which the increase in the relative costs of child rearing manifested itself. Public policy and local newspapers in both cities, which we reveal to be key channels of the diffusion of these norms, encouraged parents to invest in their children based on different arguments. These arguments reveal markedly different representations of the rights of children and models of parenthood.
To identify this increase in the perceived costs and rewards of child rearing, this article focuses on (1) the socioeconomic changes in both cities that caused this increase, (2) the channels through which these new costs became widespread in the public sphere, and (3) the ways in which married individuals have perceived this increase. To achieve these objectives, this article combines three main sources. First, the article uses secondary literature and population census information to assess the changes in the socioeconomic context. Second, this study relies on a systematic comparative analysis of both parliamentary debates surrounding the ratification of laws and newspaper articles in the two cities. Finally, this work draws on a series of interviews conducted with elderly people who entered parenthood during the period under investigation. Although the proportion of childless couples in relation to all family households was 24.2 percent in 1960, 6 childless couples were not represented in this sample.
The idea that the increase in the perceived and relative costs of child rearing is relevant to demographic outcomes is not new. This idea was first developed to explain the first demographic transition in a large body of literature spanning the last three decades. 7 The central mechanism underlying this argument is a transition from the conception of children as being economically useful to households to that of children being emotionally precious and economically dependent. 8 As the costs of raising children increased during the first demographic transition, parents increasingly invested in their children both emotionally and financially.
It has been argued that the generalization of the bourgeois family model from the upper to the lower classes, which emphasized investment in the “quality” of children, was responsible for the decrease in fertility and its difference in pace between classes. 9 This generalization was deployed through implicit and explicit public policy that increased the cost of having children, 10 such as legislation against child labor 11 and for compulsory education. 12 Both policies reduced the availability of children for family work and promoted the perception of children as future rather than current value producers. As suggested by Caldwell, new obligations in terms of compulsory school policies increased the cost of child rearing by constraining parents to invest in their children more and for a longer time span. 13 Two types of costs are associated with the development of compulsory education, namely, opportunity costs and monetary costs. For opportunity costs, the time that children spend in compulsory education can no longer be dedicated to helping the family in domestic or paid work. Monetary costs encompass school fees, transportation costs, and food costs. This explanation adopts a microeconomic perspective whereby parents are perceived as rational individuals weighing the costs and benefits of raising children. In doing so, parents consider various constraints that arise from the political, social, and institutional context. 14
The idea of a secular change in the value of children was pioneered by Ariès. 15 In a subsequent article, Ariès identified two further motives for the two successive declines in fertility observed in the Western world for three centuries. 16 In his view, the first demographic transition (1870–1940) was the result of the “child-king era.” Altruistic investment in child quality led to a reduction in family size. By contrast, the second decrease in fertility (since 1965) is explained by parental motivation for self-realization.
In contrast, this article argues that the increase in the perceived costs of children should also be considered a key explanation for the transition from the baby boom to the baby bust. In this sense, the beginning of the second demographic transition should be regarded as resulting from continuity in the process of investing in children and their “quality” that began during the first demographic transition rather than as a rupture of this process. In particular, this article shows that the costs of children increased dramatically during the period prior to the beginning of the “second demographic transition” because parents confronted new obligations related to the advent of new rights for children and new definitions of good parenthood.
The importance of new models of parenthood is attested by a comprehensive body of literature focusing on the first demographic transition. 17 Consistent with this growing literature, this article does not consider the couples who assess the perceived and relative costs of child rearing as homogeneous “black boxes”; rather, it is believed this appraisal may differ between wives and husbands. 18 The way in which parents perceived the costs of child rearing was intrinsically linked to how they understood the gendered meaning of parenthood. Recent studies have emphasized that distinctive understandings of parenthood led to different perceived relative costs of child rearing during the first demographic transition. Szreter showed that the decline in fertility in Britain from 1876 to 1945 depended on the perceived and relative costs of child rearing, which differed according to “communication communities” defined as groups of individuals sharing a common conception of parental duties within the family. 19 These conceptions of parental duties were thought to have a direct effect on the relationships between family members (especially among a father, mother, and child) and thus ultimately on family formation and family size. Thus, scholars have called for a reintegration of the gendered meanings of parenthood into studies of demographic transitions and reproduction. In the view of many researchers, cultural representations of fatherhood and motherhood were not stable but changed depending on the historical context. In particular, religion, class, and the labor market are believed to have shaped different cultures of parenthood. However, these studies focused only on the first demographic transition. This article fills this gap in the literature by studying whether similar mechanisms can explain demographic outcomes during the transition from the baby boom to the baby bust.
Recent studies have highlighted the advent of new norms of good parenthood and childhood after the Second World War. Psychiatrists, physicians, pediatricians, and psychologists have conducted research on child development and have given scientific legitimacy to this new knowledge. The theory of child attachment, as developed by Bowlby, 20 gave rise to widespread discourses on the definition of “good motherhood.” In particular, the necessity of the presence of the mother during a child’s first two years of development was underlined. Children were recognized as individuals with needs and rights and potentially subject to behavioral disorders that parents needed to manage. New notions of “proper” parental behaviors defined in the postwar period have also spread into the public sphere through parental guides as well as through articles in newspapers and magazines. 21
Study Design and Sources
This article draws on research on the decrease in marital fertility in Switzerland and on the transformation of parenthood between 1955 and 1970 that is currently being conducted as part of a PhD thesis. Switzerland offers an ideal laboratory in which to conduct research on changes in the perceived relative costs of child rearing. Over a relatively small territory, the country exhibits the coexistence of diverse linguistic, religious, and cultural groups. Importantly, its political structure is governed by the principle of federalism, which confers upon regional (cantons) and local (communes) authorities wide autonomy in terms of defining public policy related to family and education. This context provides the researcher with a set of close but strongly heterogeneous regional entities. This article adopts a comparative approach to exploring the decline in fertility by focusing on two geographically proximal Swiss cities, namely, Lausanne and Fribourg. This article conjectures that the change in the costs of children that accompanied new models of parenthood and children’s rights was responsible for the decrease in marital fertility in both cities after 1965.
The questions and hypotheses of this article are formulated within the framework of the so-called “adaptive rule-following” model. 22 This model focuses on individuals evolving in a context of constraints to which they adapt their rules of actions. Among the constraints that are of particular significance for this study, and following Alter, 23 this article focuses in particular on the modification of the costs and benefits of children. Institutions played a pivotal role between the modification of macrosocial constraints and the microlevel of individual behaviors, they translated these incentives into rules or norms that obliged individuals to modify their actions, or they served as guide for individuals to adapt their rules of action in a period of changes.
The analysis of the perceived relative costs of children is based on the following strategy. This article considers the constraints on families, seeking to determine the extent to which the institutional context increased the costs of children by identifying normative and cultural representations of the rights of children and parenthood. These representations can be regarded as vehicles of social norms with the potential power of standardizing individual behaviors. To identify the dominant models, this article studies two different sources that the literature has found to be channels of diffusion of norms, namely, implicit and explicit policies as defined or reflected by laws 24 and newspaper articles. 25 Specifically, our analysis first draws on a comprehensive analysis of parliamentary debates surrounding the ratification of laws relative to education, child benefits, and child care centers in both cities as transcribed in the Bulletin des séances du Grand Conseil du canton de Fribourg and the Bulletin des séances du Grand Conseil du canton de Vaud. Since these laws were cantonal ones, they conveyed norms for the parents from both rural and urban areas, encouraging or constraining them to invest in their children. Second, this study uses an extensive collection of articles published in two local newspapers targeting the middle and working classes, namely, La Liberté and La Feuille d’Avis de Lausanne (FAL).
Historical studies of the culture of parenthood 26 —the norms of parenthood as conveyed in the mass media—have shown that the view of fathers as breadwinners was the hegemonic model of fatherhood 27 during the baby boom in the Western world. 28 Fathers were viewed as distant family members without close relationships with their children. However, a growing body of studies dedicated to masculinity and fatherhood has helped to nuance this portrayal. 29 Studying Australian women’s magazines during the 1950s, Bell showed that the role of provider was still a central attribute of fatherhood in this period, but fathers were expected to invest more in family life. 30 King also underlined an increasing emphasis on family-oriented masculinity in British women’s magazines. 31 With regard to motherhood, studies dedicated to the culture of motherhood in magazines emphasized the hegemony of the mother as a housewife who was completely dedicated to her children. 32 Friedan highlighted the lack of representations of mothers as workers in women’s magazines in the 1960s. 33 Although researchers have identified a gradual evolution of the representations of females in favor of the legitimacy of female work in popular magazines, they nevertheless emphasized that the mother as a housewife remained the hegemonic representation during that period. 34 In the Swiss context, Lachat showed that the model of the double burden viewing women as both workers and mothers was widespread and valued in the watch industry. 35 Embracing new models of parenthood entailed monetary costs for parents, as abiding by the models’ rules also generated opportunity and social costs.
To assess how this change in the cost of children has been perceived by individuals (migrant or native), the systematic analysis of parliamentary and newspaper sources was completed with a comprehensive set of interviews. Oral history is particularly meaningful for a period of transition where different behaviors are expected to have coexisted. Furthermore, aggregate data obscure negotiations and compromises elaborated by individuals in dealing with constraints and dominant norms so as to save themselves space for expressions and autonomy. 36 Yet, this very process of adjustment, in which one shapes his or her own life according to his or her perceptions and opportunities, is expected to guide individuals’ behaviors and in fine explain the “transitions” studied by historians. A total of forty-eight interviews were conducted with elderly people from the lower-middle and working classes in both cities, who entered parenthood between 1955 and 1970. The characteristics of the interviewees are displayed in Table 1.
Characteristics of Interviewees.
The need to conduct interviews to understand individuals’ representations of parenthood and the related role of costs is demonstrated by a growing body of literature. In particular, scholars have increasingly investigated the importance of the conduct of parenthood, referring to how individuals experience their roles as fathers or mothers. For instance, Rutherdale showed how the representation of domestic masculinity conveyed by mass media, with an emphasis on leisure and consumption, shaped how individuals define their roles as fathers. 37 The study suggested that a central characteristic of fatherhood during the baby boom was the ability of men to provide consumer goods for the family. Studies on the conduct of motherhood have shown that mothers as housewives were the ideal model until the end of the 1960s. 38 A rupture then appeared, as women showed growing dissatisfaction and reluctance to conform to this model’s norms. With their increasing levels of education, women increasingly sought to exploit their education and to find ways to balance work and family life. 39
These studies largely focus on either the culture or the conduct of parenthood but rarely consider these two aspects simultaneously. More importantly, such studies rarely assess the effects on reproductive behaviors. Therefore, this article aims to fill this gap in the literature by evaluating whether the costs of children conveyed in the public spheres of both cities are consistent with our interviewees’ testimonies or contradict the reality of the experiences of fathers and mothers.
The Socioeconomic Context of the Two Cities
First, this article documents the changes in the socioeconomic context that induced the spread of new rules and norms. Fribourg and Lausanne were characterized by different cultural and institutional contexts. Lausanne was Protestant and ruled by a coalition of right and left cantonal authorities during the period under study. At the communal level, the city council was governed by a majority of right-wing parties. Fribourg was Catholic and ruled by a majority of conservative cantonal authorities, with similar governance at the communal level. Despite these differences, the two cities experienced a similar decrease in fertility. Diverging levels of and trends in fertility before the onset of the second demographic transition could be observed in both cities. Strikingly, however, the two cities then experienced a similar decreasing trend, with a 41 percent decrease for the 1965–1975 period for both cities. Based on a population census, Coale’s indices have been calculated. As shown in Figure 1, the estimated total fertility rate 40 in the city of Lausanne increased from 1.44 in 1950 to 1.66 in 1965. By contrast, the rate decreased to 1.43 in 1970 and to 0.97 in 1975. The estimated total fertility rate in the city of Fribourg followed the same path, although maintaining a higher level. Thus, irrespective of the city examined, the number of children per woman decreased dramatically from 1965 onward.
Total fertility rate in Fribourg and Lausanne. Source: Federal Population Census.
According to Handwerker, new opportunities offered by the transformation of the job market toward an increasingly important tertiary sector gave rise to a wider acknowledgment of the significance of education, thereby stimulating parents’ monetary investment in the education of their children. 41 Moreover, the rise of the service sector provided employment opportunities for women. Such factors may have increased the opportunity costs of having children.
This study allows us to draw insightful conclusions in that respect because the two cities differed not only in terms of fertility but also in terms of economic development. In the canton of Vaud, the importance of the secondary sector leveled off between 1950 and 1970. By contrast, the tertiary sector increased in significance during the same period, while the primary sector shrunk. In the city of Lausanne, the secondary sector represented 36 percent of the active population in 1975, while the tertiary sector represented 63 percent. Thus, higher education became particularly significant during the 1960s in Lausanne because jobs in the tertiary sector typically required highly skilled professionals.
In the canton of Fribourg, the share of the primary sector decreased dramatically between 1950 and 1970, whereas the share of the secondary and tertiary sectors increased. In the city of Fribourg, the active population was divided equally between the secondary and tertiary sectors in 1965. Thus, the prevalence of vocational education was as important as that of higher education, as the secondary sector largely required skilled manual workers. Vocational education is a dual system of education that integrates work-based and school-based learning to prepare apprentices for full-time employment. During this specific education, students earned small salaries.
The interest in studying two different cities is also based on the emergence of new occupational opportunities in the industrial or tertiary sector for women during the 1960s. Indeed, female labor force participation also increased during the period under scrutiny. As shown in Table 2, female labor force participation was less than 30 percent in Lausanne in 1950 compared with 22 percent in Fribourg. By 1970, this figure reached more than one-third of the labor force participation in Lausanne compared with less than 30 percent in Fribourg. Although the number of married women who worked was still low, this number nonetheless increased. This increasing female labor force participation could testify to an increase in women’s opportunity costs of having children.
Percentage of Female Labor Force Participation.
Source: Hansjörg Siegenthaler, Statistiques historiques de la Suisse. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 1996, 402-403. aUntil then, part-time employment was not taken into account in the statistics on labor force participation.
The gender context in Switzerland was characterized by the traditional models of gender roles, with men as breadwinners and women as homemakers. The welfare system on a national level as well as the Swiss civil code supported this traditional division of labor. 42 For instance, until 1986, a husband, defined as the head of a household, could oppose his wife’s wish to enter the labor market. Illustrative of this conservative context, women gained the right to vote on the federal level in 1971, but the political participation of women only became complete on a local and cantonal level in 1990. 43 However, Lausanne appears to have been more progressive than Fribourg because women’s right to vote was introduced on a cantonal level in 1959, whereas this right was introduced in Fribourg in 1971. Did this conservative gender context influence the models of parenthood conveyed in the public sphere?
Implicit Policies that Increase the Costs of Children: Educational Opportunities and Financial Support
This part is dedicated to identify implicit policies that impacted the relative costs of children through the ratification of laws. Analyzing the arguments surrounding these ratifications gives us insights on what kinds of norms were thought to be spread. The study of implicit policies primarily focuses on the educational policies in both cities. The costs of education vary depending on the canton because educational policy falls within the jurisdiction of cantonal authorities in Switzerland. During the period under investigation, school policies in both cities did not change substantially. Whereas primary education has been compulsory and free of charge since 1871, secondary education became compulsory in both cities in 1971. Two factors encouraged and eased access to postprimary education in both cities, thus increasing the costs of child rearing.
First, the increase in opportunities for postprimary education testifies to the firm will of the government to foster postprimary education for children, thus encouraging parents to support them financially for a longer time span. In Lausanne, the offer of postprimary education was already well developed, encompassing teacher training colleges, business schools, high schools, vocational schools, and universities. In Fribourg, new training courses were created in the 1940s in an attempt to overcome the lack of worker skills considered necessary to the economic development of the canton. Finally, the period witnessed the creation of new postprimary schools by the local authorities in both cantons. Hence, postprimary schools became accessible to an increasingly large number of children.
Second, governments also increasingly supported the financing of postprimary education. In Lausanne, fees for secondary education were abandoned in 1961. Moreover, the local government assumed responsibility for the transportation costs for children who lived far from secondary schools. However, in Fribourg, parents had to cover the costs of transporting children. In both cantons, grants for students were introduced as support for poor families. Interestingly, however, this move rested on different arguments. In Fribourg, the main argument in favor of grants was that their attribution would reduce families’ opportunity costs of having children. This argument is confirmed by the introduction of the text of the law, “Studies are expensive: they are long, and during the time children study, they cannot help to financially support the family. Authorities have to intervene to help parents to overcome this financial obstacle.” 44 This quote shows that the model of the child as an economic asset for the household was still implicitly present—albeit changing—in Fribourg, whereas it was completely absent in Lausanne. Indeed, the main argument supporting grants for children was that such grants would enable the democratization of secondary and postsecondary education.
Parents living in Lausanne were encouraged to provide their children with postsecondary education, whereas parents living in Fribourg were encouraged to send their children to secondary schools. Overall, these changes were conducive to larger investments in children. Thus, parents committed to financially supporting the education of their children over a longer time span. However, the analysis of related debates is nonetheless insightful to the extent that it reveals striking differences in the arguments used.
Between Explicit Policy and Implicit Norms: The Analysis of Child Benefit Laws
This article now turns to the question of child benefits through the analysis of parliamentary debates underpinning the ratification of the changes in the law. These laws also fall within the jurisdiction of cantonal authorities and were constraining for all the inhabitants of the two cantons. The low amount of public money allocated to families to support child rearing could be perceived as symbolic rather than as illustrative of genuine support for families. Nevertheless, these debates are interesting because they reveal several norms regarding child rearing and family size.
First, this discussion sheds light on the age through which parents were considered to be responsible for supporting their children in the eyes of public authorities. In Lausanne, child benefit laws enacted in 1946 granted support to parents of children under the age of eighteen. 45 In Fribourg, parents of children up to the age of sixteen, which was the age at completion of compulsory education, were eligible for the child benefits introduced in 1943. 46 Parents in Lausanne were considered responsible for supporting their children over a longer period than in Fribourg to provide longer postprimary education. The extension of financial support for students until the age of twenty in 1954 in Lausanne indicates that child benefit laws fostered postprimary education and financial investments in children. 47 A similar change was introduced in Fribourg in 1962. 48
Second, explicit child benefit policies also reveal how public authorities’ perception of the ideal family size evolved between 1943 and 1970. In 1943, child benefits in the canton of Vaud were allocated to parents with two to five children. 49 This range greatly overrepresented the total fertility rate at that time, which was 2.1. Therefore, this law may be viewed as a public attempt to increase the birth rate. In 1948, child benefits were extended to all parents, but a lower benefit rate was given to parents with a single child. 50 However, this discrimination of the one-child model was abandoned in 1954, consistent with a gradual transition from a pronatalist policy to a policy support for families in general. 51 This change is illustrated by a 1962 speech by M. Mugny, 52 a member of the Catholic conservative party in the parliamentary minority: “It is not the responsibility of the state to support a pro-natalist policy. Parents have to freely decide on the size of their family. The role of the government is to allow parents to raise their children with dignity without fears of a decrease in their well-being.” 53
In the canton of Fribourg, analysis of the debates surrounding the implementation of child benefit laws shows that two different policy perspectives coexisted. On one side, public authorities were convinced of the necessity to support parents after the birth of a third child. On the other side, public opinion from young members of the conservative party and working associations advocated for child benefits from the first child onward through petitions sent to authorities. The latter side would eventually prevail. 54 Although child benefits had been allocated to parents at the birth of their first child since 1945, the overall increase in child benefits in 1956 and 1963 suggests that family policy in Fribourg was still partly governed by pro-natalist concerns. Indeed, this increase in child benefits was initially directed toward parents who had more than two children, before being generalized to include all parents. The rationale behind this postponed increase is clearly associated with the desire to “support large families as a priority; otherwise, we promote small families.” 55
Third, the increase in child benefits encouraged financial investment in children beyond investments in education. Nevertheless, this investment differed between cities. In the canton of Fribourg, child benefits were perceived as compensation for families with children, in comparison with individuals without children, as a means of sustaining families on the economic level. This perception was confirmed by Max Aebisher who conveyed the dominant view as a member of the Catholic conservative party that held the majority in the Fribourg parliament. He affirmed that child benefits would “increase the purchasing power” of families and allow them to “enjoy the economic boom.” 56 In the canton of Vaud, child benefits served to increase the well-being of families in terms of their capital for consumption. The 1963 law that increased child benefits explicitly asserted that this law would help fathers who encountered new expenditures linked to “leisure, holidays, [and] cultural activities.” 57
Finally, child benefits in Lausanne also revealed the authorities’ desire to promote the bourgeois family model. Indeed, a recurrent argument from parliamentarians sustaining the increase in child benefits between 1955 and 1970 was that this change would enable mothers to stay at home to take care of their children: “Thanks to child benefits, fewer mothers would be constrained to work to help their husbands to support the family.” 58
The Offer of Child Care Centers: Questioning the Legitimacy of Female Work
Among the opportunity costs of child rearing, child care centers played an important role by lowering the opportunity costs of having children for women entering the labor market.
The local authorities of the city of Lausanne became interested in the issue of child care centers in 1946 when a new majority of left-wing parliamentarians was elected to the city council. 59 Until then, the creation of child care centers had resulted from private initiatives. In 1946, two private child care centers were active in the city. These centers targeted poor families and provided supervision and care for children of professionally active parents. Between 1946 and 1969, several motions to create child care centers under the supervision of local authorities were submitted to the city council. These motions rested on three main arguments.
First, child care centers were designed to help mothers who were obliged to work to meet their family’s needs. By contrast, women without a strong financial necessity to work were not considered eligible for public support. Indeed, the arguments supporting these motions clearly showed that the “proper” motherly role in the eyes of the initiators was that of the caregiver, “the normal role of the mother is to be at home to take care of her children.” 60 As a result, “parents have to provide information on their income so that only parents who really are in a situation of financial distress and require help benefit from the child care centers.” 61 The debates surrounding the creation of child care centers used normative rhetoric in favor of the bourgeois family model as the only legitimate model for proper parenthood with a stay-at-home mother and a father as the breadwinner. This normative model remained widespread in 1970, as illustrated in the following quote: “Childcare centers must be available for the families that need them because they face financial difficulties. Private childcare centers do not offer enough places; thus, authorities have to fill this gap by creating new childcare centers, but only when it is really necessary. Indeed, the multiplication of childcare centers could encourage mothers to use them without absolute necessity. This causes damage to children. We need to keep in mind that the education provided by the mother is the best education.” 62 Therefore, the opportunity costs for women who wanted to work were high, as these women had to find other alternatives to placing their children in child care. This need likely increased their anxiety as well as the monetary costs of having a large family, thus encouraging women to limit their family size.
Second, the creation of child care centers was thought to protect children from the dangers of being left alone in the street and to contribute to their sound development through supervision by early childhood educators.
Finally, the creation of child care centers also appeared as a response to the wishes of the population, as expressed in many inquiries conducted among the population and medical experts quoted in these debates. 63
In Fribourg, the issue of child care centers was completely absent from the local authorities’ agenda. Indeed, there was no trace of parliamentary debates on this issue between 1945 and 1975. This lack of concern by the authorities increased the costs of children for families in which women needed or wanted to work.
In Lausanne, there were calls for child care centers but only for families in financial distress. In addition, the eligibility requirements to receive this support were sufficiently constraining to prevent the majority of Lausanne families from benefiting from these institutions. Moreover, the number of available places in these centers was low. Thus, only a small minority could benefit from these centers. In Fribourg, there were no such institutions. Overall, the effect on the costs of child rearing during female day work can thus be considered similar in both cities.
Local Newspapers: New Rights for Children and New Duties for Parents
After having analyzed public policies that increased the cost of child rearing, this article now turns to the perception of the rights of children and models of parenthood, as illustrated by articles published in two local newspapers. Evolving definitions of the rights of children induced new duties for parents, thereby increasing the cost of child rearing. What were these new rights for children? What types of new duties were required of parents? What do local newspaper articles reveal about the underlying representation of parenthood and children’s rights?
Two local newspapers, that is, La Liberté and FAL with predominantly lower- and middle-class readerships have been chosen. Addressed to a Catholic audience, La Liberté reached a daily circulation of 21,178 copies in 1966. Véronique Pasquier estimated its distribution rate in Fribourg (city) at 72.4 percent of all households in 1955 and 55 percent in 1964. 64 La Liberté was the sole French-language daily in the canton of Fribourg. During the period under scrutiny (1955–1970), the newspaper was viewed as both an organ of the Catholic conservative party and the voice of the Bishopric, although it publicly proclaimed its independence on numerous occasions. FAL, for its part, was the most popular daily nonpartisan newspaper in the canton of Vaud. Its circulation, totaling 80,200 copies in 1960, grew to 93,500 copies by 1972. Both newspapers featured regular sections dedicated to family matters; the similar themes they addressed lend themselves well to comparative analysis, as both are likely to yield discourses on parenthood. Thus, in La Liberté, the two regular features retaining our attention were “Au service de la famille” [Serving the Family], which ran from 1950 onwards, and “Dans votre foyer, Madam” [In Your Home, Madam], which ran on a monthly basis beginning in 1960. In FAL, we shall examine the weekly section “La Page de Madam” [The Lady’s Page] retitled “Pour vous Mesdames” [For You, Ladies] in 1960. Although this feature was primarily addressed to female readers, it periodically featured articles directly addressing a male readership and fathers in particular. In La Liberté, the authors were mainly women or priests, while in FAL the authors were women. We have screened the archives of both newspapers, concentrating on the years 1955, 1960, 1965, and 1970. The occurrence of articles containing useful indications as to the socioeconomic transformation of the costs of children has been systematically classified across two broad thematic categories, namely, those indicative of the rights of children and the corresponding parental duties and those indicative of models of parenthood, with a distinction between motherhood and fatherhood. Sixty-four articles in Fribourg newspapers and fifty-nine articles in Lausanne newspapers pertaining to family or educational issues were gathered and were thus indicative of the underlying conceptions of the rights of children and models of parenthood. These articles encouraged parents to provide children with the best support for their future lives and careers. This objective could be achieved through higher education, the presence of the mother during the early years of childhood, the acquisition of toys that are beneficial to children’s development, and consultation with practitioners and psychiatrists when behavioral troubles arise. Fulfilling these new rights for children involved considerable costs in terms of the time spent with children and financial resources. A reduction in family size emerged as a solution to achieve this goal.
The highest number of articles was indicative of the rights of children to education. Twenty-three articles in Fribourg (36 percent of the entire corpus) and eight articles (13.5 percent) in Lausanne addressed this subject. A small amount of articles were found for Lausanne because education for children was assumed in the canton of Lausanne to the extent that there was no need to call for it. Differences could nevertheless be observed between the two cities. In Fribourg, La Liberté dedicated a weekly column to issues related to vocational education. In Lausanne’s La Feuille d’Avis, no similar column existed because vocational education in Lausanne was already commonplace after 1961, when secondary education became free. In Fribourg, the conception of education was presented as instrumental because having a profession was considered the best way to secure a prosperous future. To guarantee this right of children to education, articles in Fribourg newspapers incited parents, who were depicted as financial purveyors, to make “monetary sacrifices” 65 : “Which parents would want to refuse their children the most significant gift of their life?” 66 The fact that Fribourg newspapers underlined these monetary sacrifices shows that education was not assumed, rather it was presented as a gift and not as a right.
Articles in Fribourg newspapers also underscored the right of young girls to receive an education. 67 This finding reflects the need to resolve the differences in access to education between girls and boys because until the end of the 1930s, as shown by Anne-Françoise Praz, girls were discriminated against in terms of access to education. 68 In Lausanne, rather than underlining financial sacrifices, articles were devoted to encouraging parents to invest time on a daily basis to following the improvement of their children during their primary education: “Primary school is now a part of a parent’s life as much as it is a part of their children’s life.” 69 Thus, the school performance of children was portrayed as the success of parents and as a sign of good parenthood. There was consequently a similar increase in the costs of children as depicted in both newspapers although different types of costs were associated with education. Lausanne newspapers indicated that education increased opportunity costs, whereas Fribourg newspapers emphasized monetary costs.
Second, various articles emphasized children’s right to leisure. In Fribourg, eleven articles (17.5 percent) addressed this issue, as opposed to ten articles (17.2 percent) in Lausanne. In particular, these articles recognized the right of children to play with toys that were “beneficial for their development,” 70 to play with their parents, to read, and to have holidays. Parents were encouraged to find time to play with their children, to spend weekends with them engaging in outdoor activities, and to buy them toys suited to their psychological development. Such objectives supported a new form of family life in which parents spend time with their children. This time was depicted as both an emotional pleasure and a benefit.
Third, eleven articles (17.5 percent) in Fribourg and ten articles (17.2 percent) in Lausanne were dedicated to presenting the benefits associated with the presence of the mother during the early years of childhood. Moreover, nine articles in Fribourg and four in Lausanne presented the negative consequences of the absence of the mother for child development and used rhetoric inspired by psychological studies, such as the theory of child attachment, to reinforce the imperious necessity of the presence of the mother. According to these articles, the absence of the mother leads a child to “deprivation.” The child becomes “if not always an offender, at least very often inadequate and a psychopath.” 71 The use of strong negative terms reinforced the need for mothers to stay at home.
Finally, several articles addressed the behavioral problems of children, testifying of a process of psychologization. In Lausanne, twenty-four articles (41.3 percent) were devoted to this issue as opposed to only six articles (9 percent) in Fribourg. Setting the good example was no longer a sign of good parenting; these articles urged parents to gain parental skills in turning to professionals such as pediatricians, family physicians, and child psychologists for guidance in coping with these problems. The lack of parental expertise, more specifically maternal expertise, induced pathological behaviors. Overall, this increasing psychologization only reinforced the need for a greater investment in children and consequently led to a reduction in family size.
Models of Parenthood in Local Newspapers
The results further show that representations of parenthood were also particularly significant. Thirty-nine articles addressed this issue in Fribourg, as opposed to fifty-four articles in Lausanne. The dominant representations in both cities’ newspaper articles were those of the mother as a housewife and as the primary caregiver at home and of the father as a breadwinner.
In both newspapers, the hegemonic model of the mother as a housewife was presented as conforming to female “nature” 72 : it is her “natural vocation.” 73 Beyond the legitimization of this hegemonic model, it was largely the valorization of housework and maternal tasks that was visible in newspapers. This valorization rested on four arguments. First, housework was regarded as a profession. 74 The title of the article “Mother as a profession,” published in Fribourg’s La Liberté, is particularly revealing in that context. Second, this profession was presented as having greater “human value” than paid work, “her work as a housewife and as a mother comprises a human value that proletarian work or any bureaucratic function do not comprise.” 75 Third, notwithstanding the contradiction with this last argument, housework required intellectual and organizational skills, which were typically skills associated with paid work. Finally, the articles condemned all forms of the depreciation of housework, “[the] housewife as a profession is completely devalued, and soon staying at home will be a shame! It is nonsense!” 76
The personal qualities of “good” motherhood were those of the traditional model of motherhood. Three main qualities of the good mother were underscored, that is, a mother’s affective and relational qualities, with a particular emphasis on the “mother’s love and tenderness” 77 and her “constant availability to her children,” 78 the “mother’s selflessness,” 79 and the mother as a “beautiful” 80 and “healthy” woman.
However, tensions and breaches are noticeable in this representation. In Fribourg, the representations of the mother as a housewife and of the mother who is obliged to work to meet financial needs were the only legitimate representations until 1965. Women who wanted to work were portrayed as selfish, “What must we think about these mothers who leave their children to childcare centers or to a neighbor in order to live comfortably, to purchase a television or a car?” 81 A mother who worked for reasons other than financial necessity was considered a bad mother. Subsequently, a gradual recognition of female part-time employment became perceptible and legitimized as beneficial to both the psychological well-being of the mother and the family budget. In Lausanne, the local newspaper oscillated between the recognition of female employment in the case of financial necessity and the condemnation of its side effects on children’s development. The articles also oscillated between a strong condemnation of women who wanted to work and a gradual recognition of the legitimacy of part-time employment. This contradiction illustrates the tensions between conflicting representations of motherhood. However, not all women could embrace this social construction of good motherhood. Indeed, a mother as a housewife was presented as the best mother. Thus, mothers who could not embrace this model because the financial situation of the household obliged them to work may have felt guilt and frustration. Moreover, a mother who wanted to work fell outside of the general definition of a “good mother,” as employment was regarded as jeopardizing mother–infant bonding.
The ideal model of fatherhood as depicted in newspapers was also redefined between 1955 and 1970. The father as breadwinner reigned throughout the period. Two attributes of these models were particularly apparent in both newspapers’ articles, that of the head of household and that of the provider. However, both newspapers also challenged these attributes. For the head of the household, although authority in itself was not the object of criticism, the way in which fathers applied this authority was criticized. It is argued that a father must show “virile” yet “moderate” authority without “being a tyrant”: children will find affective security with a virile father who knows how to apply his authority with good sense and moderation.
82
We need to recognize that virile and calm authority that is not imperious, far from frightening the child, provides him a feeling of security. A surly affection as well as relationships without sentimentalism are attributes of athers.
83
For the provider, these articles underlined both the absence of fathers and their abdication as negative consequences of their investment in paid work. In addition, both newspapers encouraged fathers to be more committed to family life, although this encouragement was more frequently found in Lausanne. This evidence shows a redefinition of fathers’ duties toward a greater investment in time spent with children. Thus, the costs of having children increased for fathers who simultaneously needed to work and to find time to spend with their children.
Costs of Children and Models of Parenthood as Described by Individuals
The previous section has clarified that the representations of children’s rights and of models of parenthood conveyed in local newspapers and public policies increased the costs of child rearing. This article now addresses this issue based on individuals’ perceptions using interviews. What were individuals’ perceptions of the costs of having children? To what extent did individuals mirror the new rights of children as identified previously? What arguments did individuals use to justify the size of their families? How did individuals define good motherhood and good fatherhood?
Individual perceptions of the costs of child rearing corresponded to the representation of children’s new rights depicted in public policy and local newspapers. Fewer than half of the interviewees (nineteen) presented the monetary costs of child rearing as their main motivation for limiting the size of their families. Among these interviewees, fifteen individuals were from the working class and four were from the lower middle class. Eleven individuals lived in Fribourg, and eight lived in Lausanne. Fourteen were Swiss, and five were migrants from Italy and Spain. These individuals emphasized that children were financially demanding because rearing them “properly” required a good education, space in one’s home, and access to leisure. This observation is illustrated by Stéphanie’s testimony. Stéphanie was born in 1924 in Fribourg. She is a working-class woman who married an unskilled worker in 1944. Her grandparents raised her because her mother did not want to take care of her. She grew up surrounded by nine uncles and aunts. Several times during the interview, Stéphanie explained that she regretted being unable to complete an apprenticeship because it was too expensive for her grandparents. She also stated that she did not have many toys as a child and that she had to work in a factory to help support the household financially. She expressed sadness about her childhood without a mother’s love. Since she married, Stéphanie has worked as an unskilled manual worker to fulfill the financial needs of her family. She had three children, affirming that the birth of her third child was not planned. Stéphanie explained that she and her husband had decided not to have more than two children because of their financial situation, as having children generates expenses: I said, “I don’t want more than two children because of our salary.” Moreover, we would not have been able to provide what they wanted. You see, we had very little money; I had to find ways to save money, and I didn’t want to deprive my children of anything. They needed a normal life! You know, I didn’t have a normal life. Well, we had television, we had fun! (…) You see, I thought about life in general. It is beautiful to have many children, but you need to think more than just the pleasure they give you. You had to buy them clothes. You had to feed them, to give them little presents to please them. Then, there was education. I mean, they needed education.… Well, I had to consider all of these costs.
Stéphanie’s account shows that she recognized the pleasure that she gained from having children. However, she did not want a large family because she wanted to ensure that her children received education. Another example of the use of monetary terms to describe the costs of having children is illustrated in the interview with François. François was born in 1935 in the Vaud countryside, and he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. He moved to Lausanne and married a working-class woman in 1959. His wife worked until 1965, when he started a new job as a policeman and earned a sufficient amount of money to be the family’s sole breadwinner. The couple then had two children. When asked whether he had an ideal family size, François explained how he perceived the costs of children: Well, we needed to consider … I mean, because we had two boys, if a girl came, we would need an additional room, which means additional costs. We had to calculate according to my salary and consider the costs that an additional child would have generated. We had to be careful with money to financially support our family, so that our children would have what they needed for their development, for their education.
These accounts are representative of how individuals perceived the costs of child rearing. However, not all interviewees explicitly framed the need to reduce family size in terms of the costs of children or in terms of the economic burden. Although their perceptions of costs were identical, seven individuals used the expression of providing a good upbringing, which means providing children with education, emotional and time investment, objects of consumption, and leisure, as well as attempting to give them sufficient space, such as their own room within the house or flat. Migrant interviewees who grew up in a rural environment with plenty of space for play tended to emphasize the lack of space in their flat or house as the main reason for family limitations. Bernard’s account is representative of this perception. Bernard was born in 1944 in the canton of Fribourg, and he completed an apprenticeship as a postman in Geneva. He married a working-class woman in 1966, moved to Lausanne, and had two children. To provide his family with a better standard of living, he began a training program as a policeman when he was still a postman. Bernard explained why they did not want more than two children: In my time, the average family size was around two. I mean, there were families with four or three children but hardly ever more than that. That was like this because we wanted to rear them properly, to provide them with a good upbringing, to give them the opportunity to study, to give them a good situation, and you know, the flats were really small at that time. We did not want three children per room; thus, two children was a perfect number for us.
When asked what he meant by “good upbringing,” he explained as follows: Well, I mean some comfort and to give them the opportunity to study if they wanted to in order to have a good situation.
Bernard’s account shows that he was aware of the social norms surrounding family size. Another example is that of Nathalie, a working-class woman born in 1930 who married a butcher in 1955. Because of his health problems, her husband bought a small shop where she worked for her entire professional life. The couple had three children. Nathalie explained that the birth of her third child was unplanned. She would have preferred only two children. She explained her desire to limit the size of her family as a result of the lack of time available for her children: I was happy to have children; I don’t know what mother would not be! Anyway, I was just disappointed with having a third child. This was not about having a child as such, but rather about having time to look after them. You have to spend time with your children. Doing it only on Sundays like we did wasn’t enough.
Nathalie was referring to the norm of the new family model in which parents must spend time with their children. She expressed frustration about being unable to comply with this norm. Overall, the costs of children perceived by these individuals mirror those identified through the analysis of public policy and local newspapers.
With regard to models of parenthood, our interviews correspond to the representations of parenthood depicted in parliamentary debates and newspaper articles and in actual parenthood practices.
First considering the models of motherhood, all of the interviewees emphasized a mother’s love, affection, and availability for her children as the main features of good motherhood. Among the forty-eight mothers whose life course is known, twenty-eight left their paid work during their children’s early years and went back to the labor market when their children were at school. Eight women never returned to the labor market. In the majority, wives of the forty-eight couples from the sample did not follow the model of a mother as a housewife during their entire matrimonial life. Nevertheless, the words of many interviewees showed the idealization of this model and the efforts they made to comply with it.
The first legitimization of the mother as a housewife, as identified in the interviews, is her availability for children, a belief shared by both sexes. Seventeen interviewees, male and female, explained that the wife gave up her paid work because the husband thought that her proper place should be at home to take care of the children. The example of Andrea illustrates this male injunction. She was trained as a nurse, married to a Fribourg shopkeeper, and had three children: You told me that your husband did not want you to work? Why?
He thought, maybe it was a bit old fashioned, but he thought that to raise children properly a woman should stay at home. Well, he earned enough. Anyway, I had a profession but I was not able to find a position.…”
When female interviewees affirmed having decided themselves to give up their paid work, they emphasized that maintaining a constant presence for their children was the main feature of good motherhood and the guarantee of the good children’s development. Lotti trained as a postal office clerk, married to a caseworker, a posteriori attributed her children’s success and their smooth transition to adulthood to her constant availability: Well, on a financial level, we could afford that I stayed at home. But I mean it was also in people’s mind: who has children stays at home. This idea was still widespread. I thought it was the most beautiful work I could do, staying at home with my children and giving them a proper upbringing so that they would have a future. Anyway, I must admit that they did well. Sometimes I thought we were lucky but then I realized it was not only about being lucky. We also we made an effort, we wanted them to be happy to be there for them.…
However, economic conditions played a key role in the availability of mothers to their children. In low-income families in both cities and in some migrant families, mothers had to work to contribute to the well-being of the family. The ability of these mothers to improve the standard of living was viewed as a central component of good motherhood. This depiction applied to nine of the forty-eight women interviewed, including five from Fribourg and four from Lausanne. Of these nine women, two were Italian and one was married to an Italian. These mothers worked as manual workers in factories or as saleswomen, or they worked from home creating cardboard or clothes. For some women, working at home was the only solution because they encountered difficulties finding a place to care for their children during the day. Although women who worked from home earned little money, this income was a welcomed complement to the household’s budget. Adélaïde is a working-class woman from Fribourg who was born in 1928 and who married an unqualified manual worker in 1953. She struggled with financial problems throughout her entire married life. Because her husband did not earn enough to meet the basic needs of the household, Adélaïde needed to work. As long as she only had two children, she worked in a factory and brought her children to her sister’s care during the day. After her third child was born, she was unable to find a place where she could leave the children during the day; thus, she decided to work from home. Adélaïde expressed her ability to reconcile work and children as a sign of good motherhood: In any case, I was always there for my children. This was really important. I did everything in my power to make them happy. When they went to school, they often asked me for money to buy a little something. I always gave them something; even when I did not have money, I found a way to give them 5 centimes.
This article now examines briefly how individuals define good fatherhood, since this topic has been the subject of another paper. 84 In both cities, our interviewees underlined the importance of the father as a breadwinner and the mother as a housewife. In fact, 81 percent of the interviewees believed in this model. The traditional model of the father as the head of the household, the provider, and the distant educator was still dominant in the accounts of the interviewees. However, the interviews revealed a new definition of paternal authority, as several wives complained about the excessive exercise of authority by their husbands. A novel finding of this study is the observation of a greater investment of men in the household. Men, whether Swiss or migrants, emphasized their ability to offer consumer goods and holidays to their families as being central to their conception of fatherhood. As a justification, the male interviewees highlighted the difference in terms of material comfort between their own childhood and that of their children. This consideration led them to aim for a reduction in family size to guarantee the family’s access to consumer goods.
All men who were presented as good fathers by the female interviewees were depicted as spending time with their children and family on the weekends, playing with them, and engaging in outdoor familial activities, such as picnics or hikes.
Finally, the men who were presented as bad fathers by the female interviewees were those who did not have stable jobs, who wasted household money on alcohol, and who spent a great deal of time in bars rather than with their families. Two mothers considered the authoritarian demeanor of their husbands toward their children as a sign of bad fatherhood and complained that their husbands did not show any affection to their children. Overall, the results indicate that social class and geographical origin are of particular interest in identifying nuances in the conduct of fatherhood.
Conclusion
Based on a three-step analysis, this article found that changes in the socioeconomic context implied new constraints on child rearing for individuals. These new constraints circulated in the public sphere through norms that were conveyed by laws and by newspaper articles. These norms served as guides for parents and increased the relative perceived costs of child rearing. As a result, individuals limited the size of their families. First, this article has shown that the advent of the society of consumption, the development of the welfare state, and the increase in the secondary and tertiary sectors in both cantons gave rise to greater investments in the quality of children and in the well-being of the family and led to a redefinition of the roles of parents. Second, these changes were reflected in norms related to family size and investment in children as identified in laws on school policy, child benefits, and child day care centers as well as in articles devoted to the rights of children and the corresponding parental duties in local newspapers. Third, individual definitions of the costs of children and of the models of fatherhood and motherhood were found to correspond to these new norms. Overall, the increase in the perceived relative cost of child rearing led to a reduction in family size. In particular, investments in child quality and in family well-being in terms of monetary and time resources were decisive triggers of this decrease in fertility.
This relative increase in the perceived costs of child rearing could have encouraged spouses to communicate with regard to birth control and may have allowed them to use a method of birth control that required the collaboration of men and women, such as the temperature method. Another element worthy of further investigation is the work of women and the double burden that became a significant feature of good motherhood during the period under scrutiny. This element was only partially analyzed in this article to the extent that it was linked to the model of motherhood. However, a more detailed chronology of the emergence of the double burden model as well as further research on the level of education of mothers who participated in the baby bust could provide insight into specific constraints that affected not only family formation but also the father’s role within the household and his progressive involvement in children’s education.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to my supervisor, Anne-Françoise Praz, who provided comments and advice on the first version of this article. I would like to thank Simon Szreter, Sian Pooley, and Matthieu Chavaz for their encouraging and worthwhile comments as well as the participants at the European Social Science History Conference, at the Social and Economic Workshop, and at the Gender and History Workshop at the University of Cambridge.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s( disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the