This paper describes the matrimonial and reproductive behaviour of Italians who migrated to Belgium after the Second World War. Migrants were either already married, or later became married, to other Italians. Among the children of migrants, men equally chose Italian or Belgian wives but women tended to prefer Italian partners. Italian-Belgian marriages were more frequent among the better educated groups. Family size is smaller among migrants marrying after migration and in heterogamous marriages. Significant differences in birth intervals are found when marriage occurred before or after migration, between generations, and between homogamous and heterogamous marriages.

Associations have been shown between father’s absence and menarcheal age, but most studies have focused on absence resulting from divorce, abandonment or death. Little research has been conducted to evaluate the effect on menarcheal age of paternal absence through migrant work. In a sample of 400 middle school students, this study examined the association between paternal migrant work and menarcheal age against a backdrop of extensive rural-to-urban migration in China. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire, including social-demographic characteristics, aspects of family relationships, information about father’s migrant work and age at menarche. After adjusting for BMI, parent marital status and perceived relationship with mother, lower self-perceived quality of father–daughter relationship (both ‘father present, relationship poor’ and ‘father absent, relationship poor’) and lower frequency of contact with the father were associated with higher odds for early menarche. These findings suggest that the assumption that father’s absence for work influences the timing of menarche needs to be examined in the context of the quality of the father–daughter relationship and paternal care, which appear to play a critical role in the timing of menarche. These findings also emphasize the importance of enhancing paternal involvement and improving father–daughter relationships in the development of appropriate reproductive strategy in daughters.

Promoting men’s involvement in antenatal care (ANC) requires an understanding of their views on how they ought to be involved. Their involvement in ANC services can help in reducing delay in deciding to seek care and facilitate women’s access to skilled antenatal services. This study sought to determine men’s views and knowledge on, and challenges to, involvement in ANC services in Tanzania. The cross-sectional study was carried out in four districts of Dodoma Region in November 2014 and June 2016. A multi-stage sampling strategy was used to select the study respondents. Data were collected by interviewing 966 men using a structured questionnaire. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between men’s involvement in ANC services and their background characteristics. About 63.4% of respondents accompanied their partners to ANC services. Men’s view was that they can be involved through accompanying their partner to ANC clinics and providing money for health services. Men who had poor knowledge on ANC services were two times less likely to be involved in ANC services. Similarly, long waiting times at the antenatal clinics decreased the likelihood of service utilization by their partners. Men from a two-income household were more likely to be involved in ANC services than men from households where the men’s earnings were the only source of income. Challenges encountered by men during attendance at ANC services included: perception of antenatal clinics as places only for women, financial difficulties, influence of peer pressure and lack of time due to occupational demands. There is a need to establish community outreach ANC services that offer couple-friendly services in Tanzania. Also, it is crucial to have a policy for men’s involvement in maternal health care that addresses cultural practices that hinder men’s involvement in ANC services.

Garenne (2009) presented data on the sex ratio of a present birth by the numbers of previous brothers and sisters. In unisexual sibships, the probability of a further girl increases with the number of previous girls; and the probability of a further boy increases with the number of previous boys. Garenne noted that there is an asymmetry in that the effect is stronger with regard to girls than boys. He was uncertain of the cause of this. Here I suggest a potential solution to this problem. Garenne also seems to imply that parental reproductive stopping rules cause heterogeneity of sex ratios. I suggest that they may reveal it – but do not cause it. Moreover, I suggest that the effects of such stopping rules may be counter-intuitive.

Data from a 1993 household survey in rural Sierra Leone revealed that, among women aged 12-49 with at least one child younger than 5, about 13% were using a contraceptive method and about 67% wanted more children. These rates differ from those reported for the 1980s and 1970s, when the contraceptive use rate was around 6% and more than 85% of women desired more children, suggesting a trend towards fertility limitation over the years. Logistic regression analysis showed that contraceptive use was positively associated with age, number of living children, age at marriage, education, and economic status, and negatively associated with Islamic and traditional religious affiliations. Government and other health clinics, hospitals, and government paramedical personnel were the major sources of contraceptive supplies. The lower desire for more children might relate to demographic pressure from the recent improved child survival rate compounded by recent economic hardship.

Reproduction in India is mainly confined to within marriage. The fertility preferences of spouses will not necessarily be the same, but discussion between couples creates scope for understanding between spouses after marriage. Knowing each other’s opinions facilitates decision-making on sensitive matters such as contraception use and desired family size. This study used data from the India Human Development Survey-II (2011–12), and was based on a sample of 31,276 currently married women. The aim was to understand the role of pre-marital communication, studied through the choosing of husbands, mutual communication before marriage and duration of time spouses knew each other before marriage on the fertility preferences of couples post-marriage. These preferences included contraception use, who has most say on the number of children and the gap between desired and actual number of offspring. The results showed that wives who knew their husbands or who had any kind of communication with them before marriage had a greater chance of being involved in fertility decisions. However, most fertility decisions were found to be male-driven. Wives who knew their husbands for more than a month before marriage took more decisions on number of children (27%) than those who only knew their husbands from the day of their wedding (20%). Wives were less likely to have more children/sons/daughters than desired if they had some communication with their husbands before marriage. A better understanding of fertility preferences between spouses might help to curb unwanted births through delaying or limiting births by contraception use. Families in India could encourage couples to interact before marriage so they can make collective decisions on contraception use and/or the number of children they have.

Over recent decades, economic living conditions have dramatically improved in South Korea, which now represents one of the most developed nations. At the same time, its twin in the North remains one of the poorest countries on earth. Thus, the Korean peninsula represents a unique historical experiment that allows for study of the effects of environment on human development under a variety of ceteris paribus cultural, genetic and climatic conditions. Previous studies comparing the biosocial performances of the two Koreas have focused on indicators such as weight, height, mid-upper arm circumference and age at menarche. The purpose of the present study was to investigate longevity based on the number of centenarians living in the two Koreas by drawing on censuses implemented around 1925 and 2010. The study found that North Korea had some 0.7 centenarians per one million persons in 1925, and this rate moderately improved to 2.7 around 2010. Conversely, rates skyrocketed in South Korea from 2.7 in 1925 to 38.2 around 2010. This suggests that the rate of centenarians in North Korea around 2010 corresponds to that of South Korea in 1925, suggesting a chronological lag in delayed human development of some 85 years. The prevalence of centenarians is fourteen times higher in contemporary South Korea compared with the North – broadly confirming previous biosocial studies on the two Koreas and two Germanies reporting improved human development in market-oriented systems compared with socialist ones.

A high incidence of multiple births has been reported in an area of New Britain where there is no evidence that birth control is practised. Analysis failed to confirm Edwards' observation that the average size of the sibship after birth of twins varies with the sex of the twins. Repeated twinning occurred in 14% of women who had given birth to twins. No significant differences were found in birth intervals before and after twins but mothers of twins were more fertile, judged by the total number of pregnancies, than comparable women without twins. Mortality was greater among the twins than among the singletons and was greater among females than among males. The development of health services in the area has reduced mortality significantly.

The patterns of growth of various components in the populations of selected cohorts in Australia are compared with the corresponding information for selected calendar years. The use of three-dimensional diagrams demonstrates essential differences between the age structures for cohorts and those for the entire population and shows the way in which the two can be related.

This study indicates that tracing of persons through their lifetimes in this way can lead to a greater understanding of trends in calendar year populations, as well as providing a closer link between the historical viewpoint and statistical analysis. This approach is of particular importance in Australia where the pattern and timing of demographic events have produced interesting differences between trends in cohort age structures and calendar year populations.

This paper examines urban-rural differences in the fertility of Pakistani women, as shown by the 1975 Pakistan Fertility Survey, part of the World Fertility Survey. The urban fertility rates were slightly higher than the rural rates. Urban marital fertility exceeded rural marital fertility at the younger reproductive ages, mainly on account of shorter duration of breast-feeding, which reduces birth intervals, but fell below it at the older reproductive ages. The beginnings of parity-specific birth control are discernible at the older reproductive ages in urban areas.

The relative stability of many rates of suicide, particularly those of national groups, has for a long time been of interest to sociologists. Durkheim (1952), an early and major writer on suicide, used the fact of relative stability as an argument for the existence of a social dimension to individuals’ actions, even such an apparently personal action as suicide (Cresswell, 1972). Durkheim argued that each nation had a collective tendency towards suicide such that, providing the circumstances of the nation did not change in any essential way, its suicide rate also would not change. His followers, taking this sort of position as given, have related suicide rates to components of social structure or culture of the groups to which the rates refer (e.g. Gibbs & Martin, 1964). Such a procedure implies a relationship, not necessarily a specifically causal one, between suicide and the various aspects of society with which it is correlated. For the procedure to be potentially valid two major conditions must hold good. The first is that the aggregate numbers of ‘suicides’ which are used to compile suicide rates do actually represent the real number of suicidal deaths in a given population over a given period of time. This pre-supposes, of course, that some deaths have defining characteristics in their manner of occurrence which clearly demarcate them as suicide; given this, the problem is one of identification rather than of definition. The second condition is that since suicide rates are compiled from individual deaths, it should be possible to posit, if not actually demon-strate, a relationship between the social or cultural influences which are supposed to generate stable rates of suicide and the individual instances of suicide.

Cumulative fertility as measured by deviation from the natural fertility schedule is determined more by intermediate variables such as child mortality, the use of supplementary food, lactation, and husband's absence, than by the practice of fertility control using modern contraceptive methods. Socioeconomic factors like education, urban residence and the possession of household assets, though differentiating these intermediate variables of fertility, do not have direct effects on cumulative fertility among the sample of Bangladeshi women in the Bangladesh Fertility Survey. The effect of age, controlling for the effect of these intermediate variables, remains strongly negative, suggesting an early onset of subfecundity. The implications of these findings for fertility trends and differentials in recent decades are discussed.

Recent changes in vital rates in Fiji suggest that the Melanesian (MF) component of the population is growing faster than the Indian (IF) component, thus reversing a long-standing demographic trend.

Patterns of family building were studied in the respondent families of 302 MF and 324 IF children at school in the capital, Suva. Melanesian families were larger than IF families, even when corrected for differences in maternal age and social class. Particularly among IF families, there was a significant effect of social class on family size, higher status families having fewer children. Among all groups there was evidence of a secular trend to earlier childbearing and, less clearly, to an earlier cessation of childbearing. Among both races age-specific fertility levels were similar in younger age-groups, but older IF mothers showed significantly lower fertility.

It is suggested that among IF families, who form a more urbanized and commercially/industrially oriented segment of the Fijian population, two factors may account for the reduction in fertility: (i) pressure to limit population growth in the interests of racial harmony; and (ii) economic pressure resulting in a demographic transition. The latter suggestion is supported by the fact that the greatest decrease in fertility occurs among high status families. Among MFs the reduction in fertility has been less, due probably to the absence of a ‘racial harmony’ incentive and also to a lesser economic stimulus.

Side effects of steroid contraception during lactation are discussed and followed by a review of the relevant literature. It appears that oestrogen has an inhibiting effect on lactation performance, but progestogen alone does not. Most of the undesirable systemic side effects of oral contraceptives on the mother are connected with the relative excess or deficiency of the oestrogen and/or the progestogen component. It is likely that a low oestrogen content preparation causes no dangerous side effects. There are few data about the appearance of contraceptive steroids in breast milk. Probably only a small proportion of the steroids are excreted into the milk. Any adverse effects, on the infant, such as slow weight gain, neonatal breast hypertrophy and breast milk jaundice, are dependent on the two preceding factors. It is doubtful whether the small amount of contraceptive steroids contained in modern pills exert any influence on the fetus. Although further examinations are necessary, the low dosage of progestogen and oestrogen combined contraceptives given at fully established lactation under close control seems to be advantageous to both mothers and their infants.

Turkish civil code permits child marriages at 16–17 years of age, but if a child is 16 years old judicial consent is needed. Before making a final decision on marriage consent, the judges refer these children to the doctor, and ask whether they are psychologically and physically ready for marriage. While the literature on child marriage in Turkey is rich, little is known about the underlying factors leading 16-year-old girls to request legal child marriage. This study examined the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of girls applying to the courts for judicial marriage consent. Hospital records of girls admitted to a hospital in the Istanbul province of Turkey between January 2015 and December 2018 for the assessment of their physical and mental readiness for marriage were scanned. Of the 122 girls admitted to hospital for this purpose, eight were excluded as they had incomplete data, leaving 114 participating girls. All girls were Turkish citizens and had been referred from the law courts. Being pregnant/having a child (54.4%), having had a religious (non-legal) marriage (49.1%) and having an intelligence score of less than 90 (91.2%) were common among the participants. Among those who had a religious marriage, 78.6% were pregnant/had a child at the time of evaluation and 32.1% reported that they were pregnant before their religious marriage took place. None of the participants reported being forced to marry, but many had run away from home to marry (33.3%). Among those running away to marry, the major reason for deciding to do this was being pregnant (63.2%). Running away from home to marry was found to be related to lower parental educational levels (p<0.05). Contrary to the literature, the findings indicate that girls who request judicial consent for legal child marriage in Turkey are not being forced to marry. However, lower educational level seems to be an important factor. Below-average intelligence of the girl and her parents, running away from home to marry and early unsafe sexual intercourse, leading to child pregnancy, were found to be closely associated with legal child marriage in Turkey.

The subject of this talk is the ages of brides and grooms and how the relativity of the ages of such marriage partners has changed in England and Wales over the years. It is a well-documented subject in the sense that square tables showing the combinations of ages of marrying couples have been published annually since the middle of the nineteenth century. It is not well-documented in the sense that these plentiful data have attracted the research interest of demographers, economists or sociologists. Indeed, little work has been done up to now on this subject.

This paper considers three main issues. First, it deals with the underlying structural causes of international migration, especially labour migration, and the way they are liable to create ethnically distinct sub-populations. In achieving this it presents a typology of forms and characteristics of ethnic migration streams. Secondly, and by way of contrast, the case is argued for the need to consider ethnic migration from the behavioural perspective. Thirdly, reasons are described and suggested for the position of relative disadvantage in which many migrant ethnic minorities find themselves placed.

Using follow-up data on a sample of mothers who gave birth at a Lucknow city hospital, the family size ideals of the women were examined in relation to experienced and perceived levels of child mortality and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

The fear of child mortality and their own experience tended to increase the size of family which the mothers considered to be ideal. Lower ideal family size was found among younger women, those who married at later ages and those currently using contraception. Family size preferences were also influenced by rural/urban background, religion, caste, type of family, education, income and occupation of husband and type of housing.

The records of 15 years of paediatric necropsies in the Department of Pathology of the Hospital San Ignacio in Bogota were reviewed and the results classified according to the various types of genetic pathology. It is shown that out of 1463 paediatric necropsies, 377 (25·8%) had either a congenital defect or a disease considered as genetic to some extent. Simple Mendelian diseases and chromosomal disorders account together for more than 5% of the total deaths. When the pathologies with a complex genetic contribution to the aetiology are also taken into account, the figure rises to more than 20%. Overall, the study shows that the burden of genetic pathology is also important in countries, like Colombia, where other causes of death have traditionally been the main concern of public health measures.