Search

The article reviews some work on the fertility of the Jewish population of Palestine under British mandate which has until now been available in Hebrew only. Statistics regarding marriage, fertility and mortality are quoted for different sub-sections of the Jewish population, classified by origin, geographical location and profession. Most of the analysis refers to the years of the Second World War for which detailed data were available. The paper observes marriage as a factor influencing fertility. The data given shows that marriage was almost universal among Palestinian Jews. The proportion of either sex who had never been married by the end of the reproductive period was extremely low. In Palestine, the probability of marriage was high among all sections of the Jewish population. The later censuses show that the mean age at marriage has risen, but in the settlements, women seemed to marry earlier than in the rest of the country. Occupational differences in age at marriage in the towns were similar to those encountered in other countries. It is shown that wives of men in the higher occupational groups in towns married later than those of men in the lower occupational groups.

Illegitimacy and bridal pregnancy has attracted the attention of scholars concerned with a variety of plausible causes and consequences of births conceived out of wedlock.' Sociologists have expressed concern with the impact of such births on maternal and child health, family stability and the economic status of families. This paper provides corrected data on illegitimacy in the United States between 1920 and 1968, the earliest and the latest year for which national estimates are available. Official estimates of illegitimate births in the United States have never taken underregistration of births into account, although total births have been corrected. Studies of underregistration by age and colour make it possible to adjust illegitimate births. Although the illegitimacy ratio is frequently used as a measure of the level or change in the level of illegitimacy, it is a measure of doubtful utility because it is heavily influenced by marital births and by the structure of the population by marital status. For analytical purposes the number of illegitimate births per 1000 unmarried women of childbearing age is much preferred, because it is not directly affected by levels of marital fertility or by marital-status structure.

Annual variations are often more brutal for nuptiality than they are for other demographic phenomena. Short-term economic movements, in particular, seem to have a more direct impact. In the long run, however, nuptiality is generally considered as a much more stable factor than, say, fertility which has undergone profound changes in all industrialized countries over the past hundred years. In this article the social scientists will attempt to study these recent trends in the light of longer-term ones, by comparing nuptiality movements in four countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In this paper, they study the nuptiality of birth cohorts by calculating the proportion ever-married at age 50, and mean age at first marriage. Data are not always strictly comparable between one census and another, especially in Canada and the United States where geographical coverage has varied through time. However, the numbers involved were small. Moreover, the definition of marital status has not been changed, at least not the basic distinction between single and ever-married. Through a study of nuptiality trends for the single for about a hundred different birth cohorts, they will attempt to determine whether attitudes towards marriage have changed. But first, they must eliminate the structural effects which affect the phenomenon studied. For instance, marriage becomes more difficult for women and female nuptiality decreases when there is a scarcity of potential male partners.

The aim of this paper is to deal with certain problems of the technique of analysis arising out of the movement of recovery of the birth-rate in countries which previously had the lowest fertility in the world, not to provide a discussion of its significance or an explanation. In all countries which previously had net reproduction rates below 1 these rates have now been above unity in one or more years since 1943. Indeed, it is argued that speculation as to the cause of this movement should be founded upon an analysis of facts made by somewhat different procedures from those usually adopted. In the field of statistical analysis the rise in fertility rates has mainly resulted in increased attention to the effects of marriage on the birth-rate. In all the countries concerned the number of marriages and marriage rates have increased sharply. It has been shown that wide variations in fertility rates may occur while the total number of children born to marriages throughout their existence is changing smoothly and slowly. Thus the requirement that fluctuations in fertility rates should be regarded as postponed or anticipated births does not involve any knowledge of people's intentions to have children.

This paper examines the social status of women who married into the British peerage during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The majority of marriages by peers and their sons were outside the peerage. The occupations of the wives' fathers is used to indicate that the families from which wives were selected were largely those of rank and esteem in contemporary British Society. Marriages outside the peerage took place in a narrowly-defined band of privilege and social acceptability. The paper shows that the numbers of marriages into groups like the new industrial bourgeoisie were negligible, and had a marginal impact on the social exclusiveness of the peerage. The separate analysis of the marriages in each rank of the peerage, and of the marriages of heirs and younger sons, reveals that an ethic of endogamy prevailed within the peerage even for those marriages taking place in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analysis short-run variations in marital fertility in Sweden during the period 1830-1879 in order to explore different models of fertility determination before the secular decline of fertility took place, and to use fertility data to demonstrate a method of studying sociological trends and oscillations. One of the main determinants of aggregate marital fertility, the total number of legitimate births or the legitimate birth rate, is the number of marriages, and fluctuations in that number. It will be shown that if this were the sole determinant the result would be a very high degree of smoothness in the response, fertility. Auto-correlations would be high, much higher than actually observed. So a simple inspection of the response series and the correlogram is sufficient to reject this explanation, even if there were no direct statistical information on the annual number of marriages. But as direct information on marriages is available, this may be used to compute the expected level of aggregate marital fertility assuming a constant fertility schedule by duration of marriage. This turns out to follow the smooth pattern predicted, whilst observed fertility shows much more pronounced short-term variations.

One of the authors, when holding the position of medical officer in Borneo carried out an intensive medical survey of the Rungus Dusun. The present paper records the results of analysing demographic data collected during this survey. The number involved was very small; for instance, only 55 of the women were aged 15 years or over, and thus the findings are subject to considerable sampling error. In the circumstances, it is remarkable that the levels of fertility and mortality estimated to apply to different cohorts should be as consistent as they are. Sterility amongst the Dusun is shown to be reasonably low and fertility adequate. Such doubt as has been expressed as to their ability to survive is shown to derive from high mortality in infancy and early childhood. It is hoped that this study may make some contribution to the creation of an adequate body of techniques for studying the demography of such people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present paper is to examine recent developments in Norwegian nuptiality and fertility and to try to assess whether the population is replacing itself. For intercensal periods, reliable detailed statistics on marriages and births exist, but the estimates of the age distribution are less reliable, and there are no estimates of the distribution by marital condition. The greater increase in marriage rates and proportions ever married for women compared with men is explained by the fact that in 1950 the sex ratio in the age groups where most marriages take place was more favourable to the female sex than it had ever been before in this century. The next step was to compute re-marriage rates. This was done by relating, for each age, the number of marriages other than first marriages among women to the number of widows and divorced women at the census, and the number of subsequent marriages among men to the number of widowers and divorced men. In view of the great rise that has taken place in marriage rates, and the uncertainty as to whether these rates can be maintained in the future when the unmarried persons in the higher age groups will to a larger extent consist of a "hard core of unmarriageable persons," it seems reasonable to assume that the number of marriages will not be higher than that obtained from the female marriage rates of 1946-7.

This article discusses the trends of childbearing in England and Wales. Unfortunately, the analysis of trends and patterns of fertility of marriage cohorts in England and Wales is marred by the lack of data on the parity-distribution of women at risk. In this paper a computerized model simulating the fertility of a hypothetical marriage cohort in a closed population is described. The model is designed as a non-stationary Markov process. It was programmed for an IBM 360 in FORTRAN IV and applied to England and Wales fertility data of marriage cohorts of the years 1951 to 1970. For each of these cohorts, the programme generated birth-order probabilities, constructed family size frequency distributions, and computed mean length of intervals between marriage and successive births, parity progression ratios and mean family sizes of fertile women. The tables were computed for all women married once only under 45 years of age combined, and for quinquennial age-at-marriage groups up to age 40.

The article presents information on the estimation of total family size of occupation groups from the distribution of births by order and duration of marriage. The legitimate maternities registered in England and the General Register Office tabulated Wales in 1939 by occupation of father in conjunction with age of mother, order of birth and duration of marriage. It is clear, of course, that it is not possible from an analysis of the distribution of legitimate births by birth order and duration of marriage to derive any measure of fertility, which takes account of differences between occupation groups in nuptial or in childlessness.

This article attempts to explain cross-cultural variations in age at marriage and proportions never marrying. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework in which the causes of current variations in the timing and quantity of nuptiality are explored. Although timing and quantity tend to be related, each is an analytically distinct component of the marriage pattern and each contributes independently to variations in birth rates. Sometimes treated as independent variables or as determinants of other processes, they are in this analysis treated as dependent variables, themselves in need of explanation. Five geographical regions are included in the analysis: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the English-speaking nations overseas, the Middle East, and Asia. The original intention was to include all countries in the world with populations over 100,000 hut the countries included in the final analysis cover only half the population of the world in 1960. The U.S.S.R., China and other socialist Asian countries are excluded because of lack of data. The Caribbean, Central America and South America are excluded because of difficulties in interpreting available data due to the high incidence of consensual unions.

This article discusses age patterns of marriage. Attempts to find laws of fertility and to construct model schedules of fertility have been less frequent and less successful. Still less attention has been given to the age pattern of marriage. Yet, as will be shown in this paper, there are precisely defined age patterns of nuptiality, readily approximated by a simple mathematical expression, that are followed very closely indeed in populations under widely different social conditions, for example, western European populations before, during, and after the revolution in nuptiality that occurred since just before World War II. The existence of common age patterns of marriage was discovered as a by-product of research on the historic decline of marital fertility in Europe now being conducted at the Office of Population research. In the course of this research the author and his team needed to estimate the distribution of women by age and marital status in instances where the relevant cross tabulations of census data were non-existent or insufficiently detailed. They were thus drawn to examine age patterns of the marital status distribution of women in different populations in the hope of finding regularities that might be useful in preparing estimates.

This article focuses on estimates of population size and growth from the 1952-54 and 1961 censuses of the Kingdom of Nepal. The Census of Nepal conducted in 1961 conforms to the generally accepted requirements for a national census. Some doubt could be raised about the previous census as part of the country was enumerated in 1952 and part in 1954. More serious doubts still could be entertained about earlier censuses, including their very existence, though there are persistent rumors that they were carried out every ten years or so since about the middle of the previous century. In this article age distributions from the two censuses of 1952-54 and 1961 only are used. Data from the other censuses perform hardly more than an introductory function. Occasionally they serve to confirm some of the suggestions arising out of the analysis of the two latest censuses. In the case of the two latest censuses the paper is limited to the evidence arising out of the analysis of sex and age distributions. In particular, data on nuptiality available from both censuses and retrospectively collected data on births and deaths in the 1961 census are not used in this article.

This article focuses on fecundability and its relation to age in a sample of Taiwanese women. Fecundability is regarded as one of the important components of fecundity. The three purposes of this paper are--to show that with the aid of improved measures of contraceptive delays one can obtain a good fit with the geometric model; to present new data on fecundability, comparatively free from memory and truncation biases, at the beginning of married life for a non-western population; and to study the relationship between age and fecundability at the beginning of married life. The memory bias arises because in the Taichung survey the information about pregnancy histories was collected retrospectively at the time of survey. Two types of memory bias which may affect the mean fecundability are--Type A--under-reporting of pregnancy losses, and; Type B--misreporting of the time of marriage and the time of first conceptions. The truncation bias arises because the interview date curtailed the observed childbearing experience of women in the Taichung sample. In estimating overall fecundability women with at least one conception is included; hence, given short marriage duration, a woman cannot be included in the analysis at all unless her first reported conception is comparatively prompt.

Data representing `social strategies of family formation' of the female birth cohorts with completed fertility and enumerated in the censuses of England and Wales, 1911 and 1951, and in the 1946 Family Census are presented here. These data include simple estimates of numbers and percentages controlling or attempting to control fertility as well as estimated parity distributions of those controlling fertility in the various separately identified cohorts and sub-cohorts; and all the estimates are given by age at marriage. The most spectacular change over time is the consistent increase in estimated percentage controlling or attempting to control fertility in the successive cohorts represented. Among women in the cohort born 1831-45 less than 20% controlled or attempted to control fertility; but more than 72% of the women in the cohort born 1902-06 controlled or attempted to control fertility according to these estimates. There is some increase over time in the percentage marrying at ages under 20 years, and there is also some support for the hypothesis that the increase in early marriage is associated with the spread of fertility control. The percentage childless among those controlling or attempting to control fertility appears to decrease overall, although in some social status groups it increases over time. On the other band, actual fertility as measured by the proportion with exactly three or with three or more live births decreases over time in all the social status categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a statistical analysis is made of the social and economic characteristics associated with the decline of marital fertility in Spain. Variables examined on a provincial basis are marriage patterns, marital fertility, and indices of industrialization, urbanization, and literacy. Cross-section and time-series analyses of the data do not indicate a strong association between fertility and indicators of development. Rural-urban differentials in marital fertility are small when examined by province.

This article focuses on fertility of polygamous marriages. The author and his team have attempted to study fertility differentials between wives of monogamous and polygamous husbands within a homogeneous group which is known not to practice any kind of family planning. The population concerned are the Beduin of the Negeb, Southern Israel, who were enumerated in 1946 and among whom certain further enquiries were undertaken. Polygamy is not very frequent among these Beduin, over 90% of the marriages being monogamous. The study covered only 240 polygamous families who form the basic material of the present paper. The reasons and motivations for polygamy among the Beduin ate not well documented: the advantages seem too obvious to any Beduin. An exceptionally strong desire for more variegated sexual contacts might be one of the incentives in some individual cases, but a hypothesis involving a similar desire for more frequent intercourse has never advanced in their case. In view of the well known submissiveness of the Beduin woman in all social relations and in family affairs in particular, recourse to such an outlet would hardly be considered necessary.

The article deals with the recent widespread increase in marriage rates in the Western world. A convenient method of studying aspects of the recent history of marriage is provided by easily available data regarding the proportion of single persons at various dates. The article uses these data to disentangle two effects in the marriage boom: the extent to which the cohorts whose marriages have formed the main contribution to the marriage boom are marrying more, i.e. whether the proportion who will ultimately remain single is likely to be lower than in previous generations, the extent to which the mean age at marriage of these generations is likely to fall below that of their predecessors. The raw material for the computations to be presented consists of the proportions single at two recent dates for each of thirteen countries used in the study. The countries included in the study are Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. The study from the proportion single shows that both reduction in the age at marriage and an increase in the proportion marrying at least once in the course of their lives is occurring in several countries.

The article presents information on the studies in the recent marriage and fertility data of England and Wales. The article attempts to set forth the relevant particulars somewhat differently and, in illustrating the recent demographic history of England and Wales, to show ways in which this may with advantage be exhibited and to suggest methods for possible use in more advanced researches among marriage and fertility data. In January 1950 the inaugural meeting was held of a demographic Study Group formed by the Institute of Actuaries Students' Society. Many of the ideas in the article are based on the fruitful suggestions that were made at that time by members of the actuarial profession as to the objects to which attention should be devoted. Legitimate fertility data have been sub-divided according to such factors as age of parent, duration of marriage and size of family, but in spite of diligent search it has not been possible to find significant characteristics according to which the experience has been consistent year by year since 1938 within the limits of random variation.

This article examines patterns of marriage behavior in Eastern Europe around 1900 and their relation to population growth in the region during this period. Eastern Europe is shown to have exhibited two patterns of marriage behavior around 1900: late marriage and moderate levels of celibacy in the Czech, Baltic, and Polish provinces, and early marriage and low levels of celibacy in the Balkans. Contrasting kinship and religious institutions, thus making them highly resistant to change, buttressed these patterns. As Eastern Europe entered the rapid-growth stage of the demographic transition at the turn of the century, people accommodated their marriage behavior to rising numbers. Especially important in their accommodation were the contrasting levels of economic development in Eastern Europe. In the Czech, Baltic and Polish territories, a relatively high level of development, largely responsible for the population increase, was involved in a complex process including ongoing marriage behavior, migration, an unbalanced sex ratio, and growing opportunities for female employment in industry. This process resulted in a reinforcement of the established marriage patterns, enabling the population to limit its natural increase.

A number of attempts have been made to estimate the mean fecundability of samples of women, but all seem to be subject to reservations. In the U.S. 1965 Fertility Survey, a carefully selected representative sample of U.S. women of childbearing age were interviewed. They were questioned about their contraceptive history and about the dates of their pregnancies. It is reasonable to assume that of these pre-nuptially pregnant respondents falsely claiming a nuptial conception, the great majority would claim that they had conceived immediately after marriage, viz, in the first month. Hence, one would estimate that the mean delay between first exposure and conception in the case of women genuinely non-pregnant at marriage was not 10.4 but 11.4 months. Arithmetic mean fecundabiity at marriage of U.S. non-sterile couples is estimated at about 0.15; it is suggested that this value declines roughly linearly to about 0.04 at age 40. The decline is due to a decline in coital rates and to an increase in unrecognized spontaneous abortion.

The article presents information on the demographic history of the Northern European Countries in the eighteenth century. The remarkable statistics of the Northern countries available for the greater part of the eighteenth century give demographers valuable information on population structure and developments. The main cause of the changes in population development was changes in economic conditions, and harvest results were of special importance. Not only do mortality and nuptiality seem to have been influenced but also fertility, and birth control may not have been without importance in the Northern countries during the period. In many respects the structure of the population in the Northern countries differed fundamentally from that prevailing nowadays in the same areas. Thus the age distribution was quite different, with comparatively many young people; a large proportion of the adult population were married because nuptiality was high not only among spinsters and bachelors but also among widowed persons; legitimate fertility was high and illegitimate fertility low; and mortality was high, especially infant mortality.

This article focuses on age at marriage and marital fertility. The erratic behaviour of gross and net reproduction rates during the last ten years, in nearly every country for which they are available, has led to some suspicion of them as the best possible measurement of the trend of reproductivity. Suspicion gives place to systematic and penetrating criticism in researcher J. Hajnal's article in the September 1947 issue of Population Studies. The article shows the weakness of gross and net reproduction rates, as hitherto calculated, not only during war years, but also in any period of marked change. It is not possible to give a comprehensive bibliography of what is now a rapidly growing literature on the subject of marital fertility. The essence of the technique is to collect fertility data specific not for the age of woman but also for the duration of marriage. By summing such a series researchers can measure the reproductivity of a typical marriage, or of a population in which the numbers and durations of marriages are given by any required assumption.

The article presents information on the growth of population in Palestine. The Moslem birth-rate in Palestine is computed each year by the Department of Statistics of the Government. The high birth-rate of the Moslem section of the population is surprising compared with similar figures for the same denomination in other countries in the Middle East. There is a large importation of Moslem females into Palestine with the result that about 30,000 more marriages have taken place among Moslems during the years 1935-44, than could have actually occurred on the basis of the age structure of the Moslem section of the population, as found in the population census of Palestine in 1931. The registration of Moslem deaths in Palestine is technically on the same lines as the registration of births, and no burial is allowed in towns unless a death certificate is presented to the Department of Health and a burial permit obtained from them. In Moslem villages, however, no permit is required for burials.

Both male and female nuptiality conditions can be calculated from any given population. Generally these conditions will be inconsistent in the sense that if applied continuously with given mortality and fertility conditions they would produce different sets of marriages, both in total numbers and in age distribution of bridegrooms and brides. It is shown that, given, say, male nuptiality, female nuptiality conditions consistent in the sense that both male and female conditions could hold in a stable population can be deduced. These consistent conditions depend on the ultimately stable rate of growth of the population. The mathematical formulae for the relations connecting various characteristics of the two consistent sets. of nuptiality conditions are worked out (e.g. net probability of marrying, mean ages at marriage, marriage-rates at particular ages, etc.), the magnitudes of the parameters in the relations estimated and the relations are translated into numerical terms, showing the effects of changes in the level of the stable rate of growth on the Consistent nuptiality conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study to compare the fertility of various sections of the building industry of varying social status. In accordance with the wishes expressed by the Statistics Committee of the Royal Commission on Population, maternities and infant deaths registered in England and Wales in 1939, in respect of which the occupation of the father had been coded and punched, were retabulated by the General Register Office by groups of occupations. A scheme of twenty-six type groups of occupations was adopted. For purposes of analysis it has been found convenient, in general, to aggregate these twenty-six groups in thirteen main types. It is noted that even the thirteen types provide a more detailed occupational analysis than has in general been used for the analysis of differential fertility. The full classification into twenty-six groups makes possible certain special comparisons. It is seen that the differences in age at marriage between occupations follow closely the differences in fertility, as was to be expected. The differences between occupations in the age of the mother at the birth of the first child are greater than the differences in the age at marriage. This is due to the differences in the average marriage duration at the birth of the first child.

The article discusses the process of keeping official registers of marriages, births and deaths, with the parish church official that has produced the records which form the basis of Norwegian vital statistics. Marriages, births and deaths among members of organized dissenting congregations are in the first place registered by the priest or the head of the congregation. Births, deaths and marriages among persons not belonging to organized congregations or of no confession are notified to the magistrates and again to the vicar for registration in the parish book. During the last 30-40 years the question of transferring the registration of marriages, births and deaths to civil registrars has repeatedly been discussed in Norway-particularly in connexion with the establishment of compulsory civil registration in all the communities of the country. In principle the registration of marriages, births and deaths by local civil registrars is undoubtedly the most rational system. In the course of the first part of the nineteenth century the annual returns sent in by the clergy concerning marriages, births and deaths gradually became more comprehensive, and attempts were made from time to time, by means of new instructions to the clergy, to improve the returns and make them more reliable.

The article presents a study on the demographic trends in marriage habits among men and women in England and Wales in the first half of twentieth century. The study has been carried out on the basis of nupitality tables. It further notes that the war of 1914-18 greatly reduced the number of men in certain generations and, therefore, among these men the proportions married were higher thereafter. In the corresponding age groups among women, the married proportions were decreased by the loss of men. These movements were mainly caused by shifts in the marriage probabilities at the younger ages. The pattern of changes differs somewhat between the sexes. Between 1900-02 and 1910-12 the marriage probabilities decreased at all ages under 40 among men, though the only serious decrease took place under age 25. Among women the probability of marriage increased between ages 25 and 35. The decrease in mortality since 1900 has resulted in a proportionately greater increase in the male than in the female survivors according to the life tables. This process has in a sense compensated the greater increase in female than in male nuptiality in the same period.

The article analyses the relation of marriage and education to fertility in Soviet Union. It is understandable that the present, highly secularized, social system in Soviet Union accounts for much of the reluctance to emphasize the role of traditional beliefs. While recently traveling in Eastern Europe, this author observed that secondary school books about Soviet Union do not mention the Islamic and Buddhist traditions among the rural populations of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and along the Mongolian border. Foreign tourists visiting the more remote parts of the Soviet Union have for some time noticed families with a large number of small children as a Common sight in Moslem communities. The high rates of natural increase in those areas are openly acknowledged by journalists, scholars, and administrators, and have already produced a number of authoritative statements from among the ranks of Soviet Union Academy of Sciences. In the 36 ethnic groups of the Soviet Union, there was a strong correlation between the percentage of Women who were married at ages 20-24, and the child-woman ratio. Correlations were lower, but Still important, among women aged 16-19 and 25-29 years. The percentage of the population aged 16-19 and that aged 60 and over with some formal schooling above the seventh grade also seemed to be correlated with fertility.

The article presents information on the causes of fertility decline in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. In the early and mid 1950'S, most East European populations were characterized by relatively high crude birth rates. There has been a dramatic fall in crude rates universally accompanied by steep declines in the number of annual births. Sharp declines in birth rates and in the rates of population growth, accompanying rapid industrialization and urbanization, are not a new phenomenon by any means. The particular interest that attaches to the recent developments in Eastern Europe is not only that they have occurred within a particularly short period of time, but also that they have been taking place within the framework of a different economic and social system. The number of new marriages contracted in a year has a very direct and almost immediate effect on the number of children born, since the average time lag between marriage and first birth is rather short. The impact of changes in age, sex and nuptiality plays a crucial role in fertility trends.

The article concentrates on demography of Europe. During the 1930's the crude birth rates and other period indices of fertility in most Western and North-Western countries of Europe reached their lowest points. The decline initiated in the 1870's and 1880's had proceeded without interruption except for the years immediately after First World War, and had gathered momentum in the 1920's. The Second World War brought with it in some countries civilian mortality on a scale not formerly seen as a result of devastating pandemics, and was followed by a major reshuffling of populations within Central and Eastern Europe, the trend of fertility as such showed less discontinuity than might have been expected. In the 1930's little regard was paid to marriage as an independent variable. There had been studies of the relationship between marriage rates and the trade cycle. But it was generally assumed - at least implicitly - that because the long-period decline in the birth rates was not in any major sense the consequence of changes in marriage habits, marriage as such could be discounted in looking at the present or the near future.

Concern arose among legislators in several German States during the first half of the nineteenth century about overpopulation and increasing numbers of the impoverished classes. This led them to pass legislation restricting marriage to those considered by the community authorities as morally and financially capable of rearing a family. Census data at the time of the repeal of these laws indicate the extent to which they succeeded in repressing marriage. Declining illegitimacy which paralleled the repeal, however, suggests strongly that the legislation was far less effectual in limiting reproduction than it was in preventing marriage. Added confirmation of this interpretation is provided by the contrasting nuptiality and illegitimacy patterns of German states with liberal marriage regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sample of 3,786 marriages, recorded in the parish registers of 77 rural and semi-rural parishes in 24 English counties during the period 1540-1835, is investigated. 49% of the marriages can be followed through to a maternity recorded in a baptism-entry in the baptism register of the same parish, i.e. the parish of marriage. Of these brides traced to a maternity, roughly one-third had their maternity recorded within eight and a half months of marriage and were therefore probably pregnant at marriage. When allowance is made for delayed baptisms, and for brides whose pre-maritally conceived pregnancy terminated in an abortion or stillbirth and hence went unrecorded, the proportion of `traced' brides pregnant may approach one-half. Turning to the 51% of marriages untraced to maternities in this investigation, for a large number (perhaps two-thirds) the most likely explanation is the removal of the married couple from the parish of marriage before maternity occurred, for reasons unconnected with the bridal condition. It is concluded that there is direct and detailed evidence in the parish registers that more than one-sixth of all brides were pregnant at marriage, and that it can be reasonably deduced from the direct evidence that in fact about one- third were pregnant. The proportion of brides pregnant in the earlier centuries (before 1700) appears to have been only about one-half of that in the later centuries. Regionally, the highest rate in both periods appears to have been in the northern four counties. The social interpretation of these bridal pregnancy rates poses many problems for the social historian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western society the process of fertility decline is often regarded as an innovation process. The assumptions behind this approach seem rather questionable, and the diffusion lags or gradients of limited importance. Both Swedish and other European data are used as illustrations. It is suggested that the decline be treated within the wider sociological perspective of a time-consuming adjustment or change process, not necessarily starting from a position of completely uncontrolled fertility within marriage. The situation in to-day's high fertility populations is briefly discussed against this background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to examine the evidence from which some calculations can be made of the average or modal age at which Roman girls were married. In The Times recently there was a correspondence in which some doctors wrote questioning the assertion by a lawyer that the age of puberty now occurred earlier. They claimed that this was contrary to their clinical experience. Yet in fact there is a mass of reliable evidence from large-scale studies which show that the average age of puberty in Western Europe has been falling by some four months per decade over the period 1830-1960. The correspondence in The Times thus illustrates a point which will be easily granted, that a single doctor's selective perception of individuals and his generalizing reminiscence may be out of focus with the picture gained by scientific observation. This limitation of individual observation has much significance for those scholars of the ancient world, who footnote general assertions about ancient social patterns with a single reference to a typical author, or indeed authors.

This article focuses on differentials in age of women at completion of childbearing in Australia. Over 90 per cent of Australian women marry sometime before the age of 45. Of these, perhaps 85-90 per cent bear at least one child. The duration and timing of the period of childbearing will therefore be of considerable importance not only to the women and their families most directly involved but also to the society itself. This wider relevance arises, in part, from the nuclear family's importance as the primary unit of consumption; in part, from the degree to which childbearing determines the extent to which a woman will want, or be permitted or able, to engage in activities outside the home; and in part, from the importance of the timing and duration of childbearing to welfare and insurance programmes designed to protect children and their mothers. It has been pointed out that while the propaganda in support of family planning has tended to emphasize the timing of childbearing, the actual practice of family planning has tended to focus primarily on the limitation of childbearing.

This article focuses on sterilization, oral contraception, and population control in China. In the early spring of 1962 China resumed public discussions and propaganda in favour of late marriage. Events since then have made it abundantly clear that this open advocacy of marriage postponement constituted but a prologue to a new phase of fertility control activities. This bland re-opening of the birth control issue may well have been due to domestic considerations. In any case, the recent promotion of late marriage was initially not explicitly linked to the question of fertility control; its keynote was: "it is not good to get married and give birth to a child too early in life." Thus, the recent campaign to encourage late marriage with its accompanying emphasis upon personal well-being and the welfare of mothers and children may have been deliberately tactful. It reiterated the official position on the need for birth control, and simultaneously and simply laid the basis for the re-activation of the fertility control activities that were to come shortly.

The article discusses some aspects of marriage breakdown in Great Britain during the last thirty years. A randomly selected British sample of some 3,000 men and women both ever-married and still single aged between 16 and 59 years were interviewed. Men were questioned by male, women by female, interviewers. Only a husband or a wife in one marriage partnership was selected for interview, never both. The informants, amounting to 82 per cent of all those selected for interview, were reasonably representative of the British population in respect of sex, age and marital status. This article is concerned chiefly with the 2,338 ever-married informants, but it does take into account the opinions of the 95 currently engaged and of the 622 entirely single in its analysis of attitudes to divorce. It concentrates on three topics, namely, pre-marital attitudes to divorce, the extent of marriage breakdown of various kinds, and some background factors associated with marital difficulties. Certain couples appear more likely to experience marital difficulty than others. It is well known, for example, that the marriages of young couples are twice as likely to end in divorce as marriages in which the brides are older. The likelihood of marital breakdown may vary with other factors too, and the survey has provided an opportunity to look at some of these.

This article focuses on aspects of the demographic situation in seventeen parishes in Shropshire 1711-60. The main object of the following study has been to see what light parish registers can shed on the demographic situation in the pre-industrial, pre-statistical period. It is desirable that the area should be in a state of early industrialization. The center of gravity should preferably be industrial, and the outer fringe agricultural. It would then be reasonable to assume that any extra labor needed in the center could be supplied from the periphery. The first half of the eighteenth century was the obvious choice. This article is mainly based on parish registers. These have been easily accessible, as they exist partly in print, and partly in transcript more or less ready for printing in Shrewsbury Borough Library. In no case have the original registers been consulted. The parish registers included registers of baptisms, marriages and burials. Frequently the series are separate units but quite often all three kinds of entry are entered without distinction in the same register. The registers are fairly complete, but there are some gaps.

It is informed that an interesting feature of the Malayan demographic picture is the fall in the crude birth rates which has been going on for several years and which now shows signs of steepening. This phenomenon can be partly explained in terms of change in the population structure. The proportion of the community below reproductive age is still increasing as a result of the post-World War II declines in infant and child mortality. Nevertheless, the total fall has been sufficiently great, and has occurred over such a short period of time, as to indicate that part of it must be explained in terms of a real decline in fertility. The increasing difficulty faced by females, especially Chinese females, in achieving marriage is probably a major reason for the present decline in fertility in Singapore and the Federation of Malaya. The magnitude of the decline in the former area between 1958 and 1960 seems to be too great to be explained entirely in these terms. Almost certainly voluntary decisions are also being made to postpone marriage or to limit fertility within marriage. In Singapore, and to a lesser extent in parts of the Federation of Malaya, economic, social and political change, particularly as evidenced by higher educational levels and a spread of family planning knowledge, make it probable that such decisions are increasing in volume.

This article presents a fertility analysis of New Zealand marriage cohorts. Of the two possible lines of investigation that the vital statistics offer for a cohort analysis, namely, birth cohorts and marriage cohorts, the present study is concerned with marriage cohorts. Some results will be summarized in Section III under three heads, one, fertility rates specific for marriage duration and for birth order; second, parity progression ratios for cohorts of virtually completed fertility; and third, "timing" of births of order 1 to 4. The limitations of the present report which is part of a wider project should be stated at once: One, until an analysis of the same material in terms of birth cohorts has been made, the relative merits of studying the experience of either marriage cohorts or birth cohorts cannot be fully assessed. Second, the question of spacing has been neglected for the present. The published material alone throws no light on the question of significant differentials in spacing of births of consecutive order between families of different size. third, the present analysis essentially disregards nuptiality, although, as will appear later, some results lend point to the contention that it is only a combination of fertility and nuptiality experience that will lead to an adequate evaluation of observed variations.

It is informed that in view of the widespread post-war interest in problems of marriage breakdown, it is surprising that so little is known of the demographic and sociological aspects of divorce in England and Wales. Since there had appeared for some time to be a need for mote information, the members of the Population Investigation Committee decided to initiate a statistical inquiry into marriage and marital breakdown. This study, now in progress, includes an analysis of the published statistics on divorce and also an examination of statistical material extracted from samples of divorce petitions filed in the two census years, 1871 and 1951. Before the middle of the nineteenth century divorce was an extremely expensive and complicated judicial, ecclesiastical and legislative process. The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act, which first made civil divorce available, was not a great legal innovation, its main purpose being merely to simplify, and incidentally to cheapen, procedure so that it might become accessible at need to the rising middle classes. Under the Act a petitioner, who previously had to go first to a civil court, next to the ecclesiastical court and finally to Parliament for a private Act, was able to sue at all stages of divorce in one specially established section of the High Court. The grounds on which the new court could grant decrees were exactly the same as under the former ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

It is informed that increasing attention has been devoted to the relationship between individual variations in intelligence, and the size of families. Studies of the relationship between intelligence tests and the number of children in a family do not take into account the effect which variations in nuptiality and childlessness between different groups may have on differential reproduction. As a kind of substitute for investigations of this type, studies of the relationship between educational level and various demographic indices have proved to be of some value. Information of this kind is available in several countries. Thus, it is well known that between 1910 and 1940, fertility among people with a higher education was lower than that of the population as a whole. The studies presented in the article shows that the question of differential reproduction in relation to intelligence cannot be based simply on information concerning the number of children to a marriage, or the number of sibs, since variations in nuptiality must also be taken into account.

This report is based on the personal histories of 1, 329 women, 36 years old and over, interviewed by the staff of the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University. Although the respondents, a group of urban white women, three-fourths of whom have attended college, do not constitute a representative sample of the population of the United States, it is possible to compare the interviewed group with the general population and to draw useful conclusions from this comparison as to the nature and validity of the data obtained. While nuptiality, stability of marriage, and marital fertility in terms of live births are below the levels prevailing in approximately comparable segments of the population, the differences are not substantial enough to invalidate the assumption, implicit in the study, that the reported incidence of spontaneous arid induced abortions is indicative of their incidence in the general population of equal educational or socio-economic status. The total number of pregnancies reported by the 1, 329 respondents was 2,723, averaging a little more than two pregnancies per woman of which 2,448 (90%) were terminated while the woman was married and living with her husband. The remaining 275 pregnancies (10%) were either pre-marital or post-marital. In terms of outcome, 1,571 pregnancies (58%) resulted in one ot more live infants, while 444 (16%) were terminated by spontaneous foetal deaths and 708 (26%) by induced abortions. The vast majority of induced abortions (93%) were illegally performed. The distribution of pregnancies by outcome was found to be very similar at four educational levels within the interviewed group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a demographic study on Ducal offsprings of the Great Britain. A total of 1908 individuals were traced who were the legitimate offspring of British kings, queens, dukes or duchesses, and who were born between 1330 and the end of 1945. The amount of information available about such exalted people is very great, and since about 1700 seems to be almost as complete demographically as it is reasonable to desire. Many studies using peerage records have been undertaken, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century. The methods used were often fallacious and the results were sometimes very odd. It is extremely important that the data on which a study of this kind is based should be reliable. The age at marriage of the dukes' children has varied considerably over the years, but is presumably typical of the age at marriage of the aristocracy in general. The Dukes' sons must have had fewer children than dukes' daughters, since incompleteness in the data will tend to occur in the daughters' families rather than in the sons', the daughters sometimes marrying obscure men, while the sons' families, being in the line of succession, would be kept under observation.

This article focuses on local population projections in England and Wales. Population projections are still made frequently, although it is more widely recognised that their predictive value for more than relatively few years ahead is generally low. They can be used to bring out the implications of assumptions about population tendencies, such as the continuance or specified future development of certain rates of fertility, mortality or marriage. The set of 16 projections made for the Royal Commission on Population is largely of this nature. Often, however, they are made for administrative needs, for which a tough figure is better than none and even fairly long-term calculations may be useful as a working basis, for it is usually possible to adapt the resulting decisions later to changes in conditions involving revisions in the projections. The methods employed have been many and various. In the past mathematical curves, such as the logistic, have often been used to project total numbers. Some kind of component method, extrapolating in the first place the elements of population change, is perhaps mote accurate; it is more or less essential if a breakdown by sex and age or other characteristics is needed.

The population of Ceylon has many features in common with other Asian countries. Ceylon has, however, the distinction of an unusual wealth of demographic data. Virtually all men and women in Ceylon who survive to old age have married at least once. The influence of marriage habits on fertility and population growth thus derives from variations in age at marriage. According to gross nuptiality tables for 1900-02, 91% of women aged 15 had married. The economy of Ceylon's ancient civilization was based on rice production, depending on a vast and intricate artificial irrigation system. From the densely wooded mountain tops, an area of high rainfall was canalized into storage "tanks." Invasion and internal strife disorganized the maintenance of this irrigation system, and the history of the country from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century is one of uninterrupted decay. The growth of the plantations brought prosperity to other fields of activity. Banking, insurance and commerce grew and thrived. Railways, roads and harbors were extended and improved. There followed inevitably a certain modernization of the economy and change of cultural patterns.