ABSTRACT
A striking feature of underdeveloped areas is that virtually all of them exhibit a much higher fertility than do urban-industrial societies. All told, ample opportunity exists for the comparative analysis of social structure as it affects fertility. This chapter represents an attempt to set forth and utilize an analytical framework for the comparative sociology of fertility. It first presents a classification of the intermediate variables through which any social factors influencing the level of fertility must operate. The chapter then tries to show, in broad outline, how some types and elements of social organization, acting through these variables, appear to enhance or depress societal fertility. It discusses the process of reproduction, which involves three necessary steps sufficiently obvious to be generally recognized in human culture: intercourse, conception, and gestation and parturition. Gradually, in the late stages of industrial development, contraception has gained such predominance that it has made low fertility-values on the other variables.
