Fertility Trends and Population Policy: some Comments on the Van Heek-Hofstee Debate

Samenvatting

A comment on the discussion of the falling Dutch birth rate by E. W. Hofstee and F. van Heek. There exists an international consensus on the Dutch birth rate, best expressed by the French demographer A. Sauvy: 'Holland is the only country in the world where one can talk of overpop and where saturation can no longer be considered a distant chimera.' However, the Dutch birth rate has been falling of late, and a controversy has arisen on the causes between E. W. Hofstee (Agricultural College of Wageningen) and F. van Heek (University of Leiden). Hofstee, who described the international consensus as based on 'something of an overpop psychosis,' explains the falling birth rate in terms of the spread of a modernist cultural pattern; van Heek stresses the religious factor, in particular the defensive 'front' mentality of Dutch Catholics. It is contended that Dutch demographic phenomena be viewed in the framework of 2 historical developments: verzuiling and doorbrak. Verzuiling, literally 'pillarization,' refers to a turn-ofthe-century split of the nation into 4 sectors (established Reformed Church; Orthodox Calvinist groups; Catholics: 'humanists'), each of which developed political, economic and cultural organisations of their own. Doorbraak or breakthrough is the post-WWII attempt by the Labor Party to find a way out of the stagnation of verzuiling. I. Langnas.