Within sociological and demographic research many argue that recent demographic
transformations can be explained, at least in part, by a growth in
individualism. Such approaches, with their emphasis on growing individual
autonomy, offer a model of human action in which the social recedes from
analysis. This paper offers an alternative framework for analysing processes
shaping demographic change, taking as a particular focus aspects of changing
patterns of fertility in the UK. Interpretations of the fertility decline at the
turn of the twentieth century emphasise the importance of changing patterns of
inter-dependence across generations and between women and men. It is argued that
in parallel, although to a lesser degree, recent decades have manifest a change
in the social positioning of these groups. Change in the reproductive regime is
offered as a concept for denoting this restructuring of inter-dependencies. We
are witnessing a reconfiguration of social ties and not their displacement. It
is as an integral part of such changes that developments in fertility are best
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