Mass repression halted Estonia’s postwar baby boom

Estonia did not experience the postwar baby boom seen in Western countries, with mass repression contributing to historically low fertility among generations who were at their main childbearing age after World War II, ERR reported.

“Because we live largely in the Western cultural sphere in the Republic of Estonia, everyone assumes that there was also a baby boom here. That was not quite the case,” said Mark Gortfelder, a researcher at Tallinn University.

Gortfelder and his colleagues examined postwar fertility in Estonia and the factors that influenced it. The research team used survey data collected at the turn of the century, including questions about whether respondents’ parents had been repressed and about family formation. They also analysed biographical data on more than 3,300 Estonian men who had served in the Finnish army.

One aim of the study was to show Western demographers how World War II affected fertility in the former Eastern Bloc. For Estonia, Gortfelder said, the findings are important for understanding why the country’s population is so small.

A reverse pattern

In demography, the term baby boom is closely associated with the decades after World War II and with countries where fertility had already fallen to around two children per woman before the war. This was a major change from earlier periods of human history, when women had five or more children.

Estonia did not follow this pattern. Among women born in the 1920s, the number of children they actually had reached a historical low. These women were at their main childbearing age after World War II. In countries where fertility had previously fallen to a low level, the same generation had more children after the war than earlier and later generations.

“In certain age groups, there were two men for every three women after the war, which created a noticeable shortage of men in the marriage market,” Gortfelder said.

Fertility is most commonly measured using the total fertility rate. In Estonia, it fell below two children per woman during the Great Depression in the 1930s. As in other European countries, however, fertility began to rise in Estonia from the late 1930s.