2.2.3  The mothers’ mutiny

The European population went through a dramatic demographic change from around 1880. At that time European and Maori birth rates were similar on the available evidence. The European birth rate dropped dramatically after that time while the Maori rate remained high for almost another century.

In 1876, the “total fertility rate” was 7 births per woman, among European New Zealanders. (The total fertility rate is the number of births the average woman would have over her life if prevailing age-specific fertility rates were to be maintained indefinitely.) By 1901 the European total fertility rate had fallen to 3.5. The decline continued at a slower rate until it reached 2.2 in 1935. The change was part of an international trend that would have come to New Zealand through migration. However Pool (1991:105) claims that, in its early stages, the Pakeha “baby bust” was far more dramatic than in other countries. Belich (1996) labels the trend “the mothers’ mutiny”.

The reasons for the fertility decline are still debated. Initially it coincided with a rise in the age of first marriage as the excess of females in the population declined. In 1876, 83% of women aged 25-29 were married, in 1900 just 58%. However, the marriage rate increased from 1900 and the age of first marriage fell, as did the age of first childbirth from about 1914. The continued fall in fertility rates was therefore a result of parents choosing to limit family sizes, despite the rudimentary contraception available. Depressions in the 1880s and 1930s, and a slump in the 1920s, may all have contributed to reduced childbearing. But the fall continued in good times as well as bad.

Figure 2 – Labour force participation rates, 1874-2001

Note: The labour force participation rate is defined here as the number people aged 15 and over in full time employment or unemployed, divided by the number of people aged 15 and over. Only from 1951 does it include Maori. For the period 1874 to 1981, full time employment was defined as 20 or more hours a week, while from 1986 onwards, it was defined as 30 or more hours per week.

Sources: 1874-1891 – Olsen and Levesque (1978: Table 1.3); 1896-1996 – Statistics New Zealand (1998b: 306); 2001 - Census 2001 data from Statistics New Zealand online database.

Improved job opportunities for women played a role, particularly from the 1890s with the expanding role of government. Jobs in shops, offices, schools and hospitals gradually replaced those in domestic service and factories. Female participation in the full-time workforce increased, reaching a peak of 21% in 1921, a level not surpassed again until 1966. However, these changes in the main followed the initial fertility decline rather than preceding it. In addition, women tended to leave the workforce once they married—in 1921 only 9% of the full-time female workforce was married.

The explanation favoured by Belich (1996) and Thomson (1998) is the increasing cost of having children brought about by governmental and social changes. The most obvious of these is the introduction of compulsory education in 1877 and the rapid expansion of education thereafter. While education was nominally free, clearly there are costs associated with it—in school materials and more importantly in the opportunity costs. A child in school is unable to work on the farm or in a factory, or contribute to housework. There were just 55,000 school children in 1875. Numbers increased to 97,000 in 1880, 136,000 in 1890 and 222,000 by 1915 (the modern baby bust from the mid-1970s also appears to have been correlated with a big expansion in educational participation).

In the late 1800s the government legislated to restrict child labour, and inventions such as milking machines helped reduce the necessity for large families. In addition, social movements such as the “cult of domesticity” discussed below helped reduced the birth rate. According to Thomson (1998:158) “Parents’ expectations of what they could and should give their offspring rose—more education, more goods, more care, time and attention—and in response they sought fewer, “quality” children”.

2.2.4  Government and social influences

What modern historians refer to as the “cult of domesticity” had its origins in the late 1800s. The key features were an increasingly “scientific” approach to keeping house and raising children and an emphasis on the home environment as a place to improve community morals through the purifying influence of women. Culturally the movement had links with early feminism and the related temperance and prohibition movements. The scientific approach is exemplified by the foundation in 1907 by Frederic Truby King of the Plunket Society, and the institution of home science from 1912 as a degree course at Otago University.

As noted above, the cult of domesticity did nothing to raise the birth rate and probably contributed to its further decline as women devoted more time and effort to their existing household rather than to producing more children. In addition, urbanisation (the population was 68% urban by 1926) brought with it opportunities for activities outside the home and an apparent change in social attitudes. Love and companionship became more explicitly reasons for marrying (Olsen and Levesque 1978).

The expanding state increasingly took over the role of child rearing. At the turn of the 19^th century only primary schooling was free. From 1903 the number of state-funded secondary places was progressively expanded until secondary schooling was predominantly free by 1916. The government also established institutions for deviant youth, whose care would previously have been left to the extended family.

Governments expressed concern about the falling Pakeha birth rate, and introduced a number of pro-natalist policies. Lower tax rates for families with dependent children were introduced in 1914. In 1911 a benefit for sole mothers, the Widow’s Pension, was introduced for mothers with dependent children under 14 whose husband had died. The State Advances Act of 1913 consolidated earlier legislation providing cheap government finance for houses and farms. Lending to low-income families expanded considerably under this Act. In 1926 the first family allowances were introduced for low-income families with more than two children, although unwed mothers and those of bad character were excluded.

Despite a variety of pro-natalist initiatives, the birth rate continued to decline. Measures introduced by the Labour government from 1936 went a lot further, and appear to have had some influence in raising birth rates. Measures included increased family benefits (later universal), free maternity care and pre and post-natal services, increased unemployment benefits, free school milk, a minimum wage intended to allow a father to support a family, and a state housing programme which aimed to provide quality homes in which parents could raise healthy families.

Increasing birth rates from 1936 may simply reflect improving economic conditions rather than the influence of Labour’s policies. But there is little doubt that the idealisation of the family, backed by government action, was to have a significant influence from the mid 1940s, when birth rates rose and women’s labour market participation declined.