The Second Demographic Transition in the United States: Exception or Textbook Example?

The notion that the demographic transition in the West has two distinct phases was originally suggested by Lesthaeghe and van de Kaa (1986) and elaborated by van de Kaa (1987). These authors proposed the terminology of a first and second demographic transition. The 1986 article posited that new living arrangements and cohabitation (premarital or postmarital) in particular were not solely the outcomes of changing socioeconomic conditions or rising female employment but equally the expression of secular and anti-authoritarian sentiments of better-educated men and women who held an egalitarian world view placed greater emphasis on Maslows (1954) "higher order needs" (i.e. self-actualization individualistic and expressive orientations need for recognition) and to use Ingleharts term (1970 1990) had stronger "postmaterialist" political orientations. Furthermore the second demographic transition would also be characterized by substantial postponement of both marriage and parenthood and by an increase in the share of births to unmarried couples. If fertility control during the first transition was a matter of avoiding births of higher parities and births at older ages in order to safeguard the opportunities of the children already born during the second it is a matter of postponing or eschewing parenthood altogether because of more pressing competing goals such as prolonging education achieving more stable income positions increased consumerism associated with self-expressive orientations finding a suitable companion and realizing a more fulfilled partnership keeping an open future and the like. (excerpt)