Reproduce or Perish? The Artefact of the Fertility Concept and the French School of Demography

Abstract

Sich reproduzieren oder untergehen? Das Artefakt ,Fertilitat' und die ,Franzosische Schule' der Demographie. This article investigates the complicated and intertwined history between the scientific discipline of demography, the depopulation debate and the pronatalist lobby, and French republican policies from the late nineteenth century till the eve of the Second World War. I suggest that central to this history is the concept and codification of fertility.