"Since the Republic of Estonia is largely part of the Western cultural sphere, everyone assumes that we had a baby boom as well. But that wasn't actually the case," said Tallinn University researcher Mark Gortfelder. On the one hand, Western demographic research has so far paid little attention to what happened behind the Iron Curtain. On the other, the war years and their aftermath may seem unimaginably distant to younger people in Estonia.

Gortfelder and his colleagues took a closer look at fertility in postwar Estonia and the factors that shaped it. The research team drew on survey data collected around the turn of the millennium, which included questions about the repression of respondents' parents and family formation. They also analyzed biographical data on the soomepoisid (Finnish Boys), or more than 3,300 Estonian men who served in the Finnish army.

According to Gortfelder, one aim of the study was to show Western demographers how World War II affected fertility in the former Eastern Bloc. "From Estonia's perspective, however, it is important for understanding why there are so few of us," he said.

Backward pattern

In demography, the term baby boom refers specifically to the decades following World War II and to countries where fertility had already fallen to modern low levels before the war. "Fertility had fallen to around two children per woman. It was no longer five or more children, as it had been throughout earlier human history," Gortfelder explained.

Estonia did not experience a baby boom in this sense. "If we look at cohort fertility, meaning the actual number of children people have, it reached a historic low among women born in the 1920s," the researcher said. These were precisely the women who were in their prime childbearing years after World War II. By contrast, in countries where fertility had previously fallen to low levels, this same generation had more children after the war than the generations before and after it.

Fertility itself is most commonly measured using the total fertility rate. In Estonia, it had already fallen below two children per woman during the Great Depression in the 1930s. As in other European countries, however, fertility began rising again in Estonia in the late 1930s.

According to Gortfelder, fertility did not decline during the war in countries that did not directly experience fighting, such as Switzerland and Sweden. "In Estonia, fertility was also quite high in 1941 and 1942 when viewed over a 100-year period. From 1943 onward, it began to decline again," he said.

Fertility was also relatively high in 1947 and 1948, but subsequently remained low until the 1970s. "In the Western world, fertility was high before 1970 and lower afterward, while for us it was the other way around," Gortfelder said.

Gortfelder said the fact that fertility declined in postwar Estonia is unlikely to surprise those familiar with the country's history, as arrests and deportations have left a heavy imprint on collective memory. "What people may not know is that, in certain age groups after the war, there were two men for every three women, creating a significant shortage of men in the marriage market. Understandably, that has a very broad impact on fertility," he said.

Effect underestimated

Political events during and after the war separated families and hindered the formation of new ones in several ways. Some families were split up when men fled to the West while women remained in Estonia. Those who stayed could be arrested or deported. "Many were also killed in World War II, particularly among the birth cohorts that were most heavily affected by mobilization," Gortfelder added.

Estonia's population fell by more than a fifth between 1939 and 1945, from 1.13 million to around 886,000. Gortfelder said Estonians and Latvians stand out in Europe because their native populations are now smaller than they were before World War II.

The effects of those individual fates can still be felt in Estonia today, he said, because children who were never born also never had children of their own, and so on. "I can't say exactly how many ethnic Estonians there would be, but I think there would certainly be more than 1 million of us, rather than fewer than 1 million as there are today," Gortfelder said.

The new study does not allow researchers to calculate precise counterfactual scenarios, as both datasets used have limitations. First, the survey conducted around the turn of the millennium only collected information about people who had been subjected to repression and still had descendants living in Estonia half a century later. "We are certainly underestimating the actual impact of the repressions because there are many cases where there were no descendants at all, or where they were no longer alive in Estonia 50 years later," Gortfelder explained.

Second, the study relied on data about the soomepoisid, a small group that differed markedly from the population as a whole. "We are looking at the number of children the soomepoisid had. However, this dataset does not capture fertility among women of their generation who significantly outnumbered men in certain birth cohorts," Gortfelder said.

Study co-author Lauri Leppik, professor of social and population policy at Tallinn University, said most of the soomepoisid were born between 1920 and 1925, meaning they were at prime family-forming age during and immediately after the war. Based on their biographies, the soomepoisid who remained in Estonia after the war could be divided into those who were subjected to Soviet repression and those who were not. The others either died in the war or fled to the West. "For those who were repressed, it significantly delayed starting a family and, through that, also affected fertility," Leppik said.

Leppik also acknowledged that the soomepoisid were not a representative cross-section of society. "Because they volunteered for the Finnish army, they were presumably healthier and more socially active than average," he said. However, researchers have very detailed data on the soomepoisid.

Although calculations based on the new study's data underestimated the actual impact of repression on fertility in Estonia, Gortfelder hopes future research will yield more precise results. Leppik said the current study nevertheless shows that repression affected fertility in two ways. First, some people either died or were unable to start families because of their circumstances. "Second, the total number of children was also lower among those who did manage to start a family," he said.

Mark Gortfelder, Lauri Leppik and their colleagues published their findings in the journal Population Studies.

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