Female genital mutilation (FGM) is very pervasive in Africa, with significant regional variations in the prevalence of this traditional practice. This study examined the linkages between FGM and multiple sexual partnership in Mali and Sierra Leone – two African countries with a high prevalence of FGM. Data were from the 2018 Mali and 2013 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Surveys, and the study sample comprised 4750 women from Mali and 16,614 from Sierra Leone. Multilevel logistic regression was used for the data analysis, with reported adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and associated 95% confidence intervals. In Mali, women who had not undergone FGM were less likely to have multiple sexual partners (aOR=0.60, CI=0.38–0.96) compared with those who had undergone FGM. In Sierra Leone, women who had undergone FGM (aOR=1.15, CI=1.02–1.30) were more likely to have multiple sexual partners compared with those who had not undergone FGM. Age, level of education, wealth quintile, sex of household head, community socioeconomic status, mass media exposure, and community literacy level were found to be associated with the likelihood of multiple sexual partnership among women in Mali and Sierra Leone. Comprehensive, age-group-based risk-reduction strategies, such as abstinence education and decision-making skills (assertiveness) training, are needed to reduce girls’ and young women’s engagement in multiple sexual partnerships. Policy interventions, such as anti-FGM legislation and initiatives like the ‘Schooling for the Female Child’ initiative aimed at reducing social inequality among girls and women, might help decrease FGM and the likelihood of health-compromising behaviours like multiple sexual partnership.

Maternity histories from residents of a Pacific Island society, Tokelau, and migrants to New Zealand, are analysed using life table techniques. Inter-cohort differentials in patterns of family formation were found in the total Tokelau-origin population. The process of accelerated timing and spacing of pregnancies was more pronounced among migrants who tended to marry later, be pregnant at marriage, have shorter inter-pregnancy intervals at lower parities and to show evidence of family limitation occurring at higher parities. These results point to the significance of changing patterns of social control on strategies of family building.

The sample under consideration in this study was composed of 3445 women who accepted some method of pregnancy prevention after consultation with the National Family Planning organization in the Republic of the Philippines. Subjects were divided into four groups: those women who used an oral contraceptive, women using the IUD, women practising the rhythm method, and those who relied on other methods of birth control.

This study attempted to reveal sources of information on family planning and reasons for acceptance of a birth control method, as well as the woman's actual and ideal family size and the interval since her last pregnancy. In addition, the relationship between the woman's educational level and the type of technique selected and husband's occupation as a correlate of the method chosen were also investigated.

The findings appear to suggest, among other things, that women near the end of the child-bearing years were less likely to select one of the more effective methods. Women with large families and those who reported the desire for no additional children tended to favour the more reliable techniques. Surprisingly, the two measures of status failed to reveal significant relationships with the selection of a given technique.

The proportion of unwanted births to married women who were delivered in a district maternity hospital during a 3-month period in 1971 was computed for each ward in the administrative area. The percentage varied from 5 to 20% with an average of 10%. These results were compared with the distributions of socio-economic variables derived from the 1971 Census. Party was shown to be the most important indicator; Kendall's rank correlation coefficient was 0·56 (P <0·01). When the effect of parity was eliminated by the use of Kendall’s partial rank correlation coefficient, overcrowding and family structure were shown to be statistically significant (P <0·05).

The concept of ‘need’ is currently popular in education. It is, as Dearden (1972) has pointed out, an attractive concept for educationalists, because it appears to offer an escape from arguments about values and about power. Those who uncritically accept the doctrine of needs can assume that there are educational experts who can unproblematically decide on needs, which can then be unproblematically catered for. Thus, when ethnic minority children began to arrive in British schools in significant numbers in the early 1960s, it was assumed that the schools—without experience or understanding of other cultures—could make an assessment of the needs of these children.

This report evaluates the decrease in maternal mortality and its relation to family planning methods in Sweden during the years 1911–80. In the 1930s fertility was low but illegal abortions were at a high level and the associated maternal death rate was 18·5 per 1000 women. With the legalization of abortion and the introduction of modern contraceptive methods, the crude reproductive mortality rate in 1965–70 was 1·7 per 100,000 women and this was reduced still further, especially for younger women, by the late 1970s. Standardized reproductive mortality was then 80% higher than the crude rate, indicating the importance of modern family planning methods. Mortality associated with oral contraceptive or IUD use in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s was lower than in England and the US. Mortality associated with sterilization was 6·2 per 100,000 procedures.

The paper uses multiple regression analysis to examine the variation in fertility among Indian Tamil concentrations in the Grama Sevaka divisions of Sri Lanka. Significant contributions are made by the proportion of females employed in agriculture, and the proportion of females aged 5–14 attending school, which together account for 85% of the variability. These variables serve as an index to the underlying attitudes to fertility and reproductive behaviour.

In rural Tanzania, evidence is provided that socioeconomic development is more important in lowering mortality than the provision of health facilities and services. The impact of socioeconomic development on mortality is shown in the study.

Surveys carried out in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1963 and 1980 showed that most women have some knowledge of contraception. The proportion who had ever used contraception rose from 7% of respondents in 1963 to 48% in 1980. The rate of current use in 1980 was 34%. Highest rates of use were found among women aged 30 years or older and among those of higher education and socioeconomic status. The most commonly used methods of family planning were the condom, the pill and abstinence.

The authors compared 130 married abortion applicants with 100 married pregnant women who were attending the antenatal clinic. The abortion applicants were more likely to have had unhappy childhoods, broken homes, sexual pathology and more children. Their neuroticism scores on the Maudsley Personality Inventory were significantly higher. They tended to use either no contraception or unreliable methods. They were older and tended to report more socioeconomic problems. The characteristics of abortion applicants in this study seem to be similar to those reported from other countries.

In the Lyon region of France, 356 couples of childbearing age were interviewed regarding their fertility intentions. Couples intending to have, and not to have, further children were compared. The former are less often skilled workers or qualified office staff, the woman is less likely to work, and the couple had their first child at a relatively late age. These differences are still present after adjustment for the couple's ages and number of children.

From marriage records of a Northern Portuguese parish for 1900–80, endogamy and exogamy rates were calculated for birthplace and residence in order to analyse the effect of industrialisation on the population structure after 1940. Marriages that were endogamous relative to birthplace decreased between 1940–49 (58·9%) and 1988 (20·5%), while exogamy increased. Exogamous marriages in which people came from outside the municipality (51·92%) were greater than those of the surrounding region (42·04%). After industrialisation, the pattern of marriages changed for residence, with an increase in the number of individuals who came from the district to work in the factories and married. Industrialisation advanced the start of exogamy which, for most Portuguese populations, began later, in the 1960s.

There is evidence that systems analysis has advanced sufficiently to have major theoretical and practical possibilities for anthropology. This paper presents support for this suggestion from studies of populations in two areas of the US: a Black migrant group in Mississippi and a Midwestern urban group. Some problems and potential applications of systems research are discussed.

The paper examines the attitudes towards legalization of abortion among a cross-section of 1130 currently married, fecund women of metropolitan Dacca. Abortion is a taboo subject and it is punishable under law in Bangladesh. The respondents in this study do not seem to be very hostile toward legalization of abortion but, on the contrary, favour this at least under certain situations. Only 11% of respondents are strongly opposed to legalization of abortion, but as many as 50% of the respondents endorse abortion in at least three different situations: (i) if the life of the mother is endangered: (ii) if the baby is expected to be born defective: (iii) if a woman is raped. This finding indicates that at least among a group of educated urban women there prevails a more favourable attitude towards abortion than that permitted by law. Socioeconomic factors, particularly female education, are found to be the strongest correlates of attitude towards abortion.

This paper examines the current fertility of men and women in the Western area of Sierra Leone and the prospects for future fertility behaviour. Probably due to the effect of rapid economic decline in Sierra Leone since 1980, the desired family size has fallen. But indications are that the preferred completed family size is lower than the desired family size

In a sample of 260 married men in Shiraz, the relationship is studied of fertility to demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial variables, the last measuring the perceived economic value of children. The number of children ever born is closely associated with duration of marriage, but socioeconomic variables also exert a significant influence, especially the wife's educational level. Recent fertility is more closely associated with age of wife, but also with ownership of modern goods which is also the major factor in current contraceptive use. The perceived value of children appears unimportant, negligible in recent fertility and contraceptive use, and only showing a slight positive relationship between expected reliance on children for support in old age and the number of children ever born.

For nearly three decades men and women have increasingly gained the opportunity to control their childbearing with modern contraceptive technologies. In the early 1960s when oral hormonal contraceptives and intrauterine devices first became publicly available in the United States and Europe, the total fertility rate (TFR) in industrialized countries was about 2·7 implying that two-thirds of childbearing couples, some 87 million, were practising contraception. By comparison, in the developing areas, the TFR was 6·1 and only 18% (60 million couples) were contraceptive users. Thirty years later, estimating for 1990, the number of eligible couples practising contraception in the more developed countries (MDCs) is expected to have increased by half, while in the less developed countries (LDCs) the increase is likely to be six times, suggesting as many as 344 million users. Another way to demonstrate the significance of this trend is with a different statistic—that the level of contraceptive use in LDCs in 1990 will exceed half of all couples of childbearing age and be only ten percentage points below the MDC level of 25–30 years ago.

This small study has looked at only one aspect of the reliability of survey data–their repeatability at an interval of 2–6 months with a different interviewer. Even for basic factual data such as date of birth, household composition and number of children there were some errors. Some were coding errors, some punching, some appeared to be reporting errors, but the numbers were small and no discernible patterns emerged.

For other factual data, such as ability to have more children or the use of different methods of contraception, the repeatability seemed to vary with the hardness of the categories. Sterilization was reported consistently, but more loosely defined characteristics, such as difficulty in conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term, proved relatively unreliable; birth control methods which involved use of an appliance were more consistently reported than withdrawal and the safe period.

If ‘hard’ facts were reported more consistently than ‘soft’ ones it might be thought that attitudes would be reported less consistently than facts. But the dimension of hard versus soft cuts across both factual and opinion data. Fortunately for us, the question about whether they wanted more children appeared relatively hard; only 2% appeared to have changed their minds radically about this. Their memory of their intentions about becoming pregnant on the last occasion was more consistent than their reports about use of contraception around the time of conception.

A summary of 298 male and 358 female respondents in the Lae urban area of Papua New Guinea in 1981 revealed a relatively high level of contraceptive awareness, but the level of contraceptive use is low. However, the overall current usages of non-traditional methods for the wives of the male and for the female respondents are 34–2% and 37% respectively. The male and the female respondents have the same views on the ideal family size—approximately three children.