Concerns about declining fertility rates are matched only by fears that childhood is being destroyed by modern parenting practices. This multidisciplinary volume offers a more balanced, less alarmist perspective on the meanings and implications of these issues. Contrary to predictions about the end of children and the end of childhood, these investigations of developments in Canada and the United States, and elsewhere in the world, show that fertility rates and ideas about children and childhood are not uniform but rather vary around the globe based on factors such as time, culture, class, income, and age.

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Nathanael Lauster is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. Graham Allan is professor emeritus of sociology at Keele University in the United Kingdom.

Contributors: Graham Allan, Anita Ilta Garey, Mona Gleason, Edward Kruk, Nathanael Lauster, Megan Lemmon, Todd F. Martin, Adena B.K. Miller, Jay Teachman, Nicholas W. Townsend, Rebecca L. Upton, James M. White, Mira Whyman, and Jing Zhao.