This paper examines the background to the recent growth in the number of remarriages of the divorced, tracing the increasing trend in divorce and subsequent remarriage in the last decade. The characteristics of such remarriages are analysed: their manner of solemnization, the distribution of ages at remarriage, seasonal variations, and the differences between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Finally, the topical issue of remarriage of the divorced in church is discussed from a statistical standpoint, and variations by county presented in the form of maps.

This paper examines the knowledge and use of contraception, and abortion decision-making of 212 Australian women who were seeking a repeat abortion in 1980. The analysis of questionnaires from a pregnancy and family planning clinic revealed that most women were seeking their second abortion. Single women were more likely to claim a slight knowledge of contraception and irregular use of contraceptives, and to attribute pregnancy to the failure of the pill. Women in de facto or cohabitation relationships were most likely to rate the abortion decision as difficult. Of the women who returned post-abortion questionnaires, almost all felt they had made the correct decision.

The incidence of family breakdown and stress has been examined in an unselected group of 92 South Wales families, each containing a patient suffering from Huntington's chorea, and related to the onset and duration of the disease, age of the patient, and behavioural symptoms shown. The frequency of actual and attempted suicide is analysed and the effects of the disorder on the primary care agent for the patient discussed. Some of the effects on children and the needs of the families for support and practical help are outlined. It is concluded that family support is an essential factor in any programme aimed at the long-term alleviation and prevention of Huntington's chorea.

At military recruitment centres in France, data were collected from some 40,000 subjects on their social environment, the amount of education received and occupation, and measurements were taken on height, weight, and performance in tests of mental and physical ability.

The secular increase in mean stature is continuing. Offspring of consanguineous unions are of lower mean stature and mental capacity, and it seems that the effect is most marked among those already below average. There is an independent effect of endogamy, but the effect of heterosis seems to be less than previously thought. Family size and composition affect stature, weight and mental capacity, and this effect is independent of socio-professional status.

The lactational histories of 500 Sudanese women were studied retrospectively to examine postpartum lactational amenorrhoea as a method of family planning. Particular attention was given to the factors affecting postpartum lactational amenorrhoea, including supplementary feeding and the use of modern contraceptive methods. Breast-feeding was overwhelmingly practised (90%) among this sample, which was roughly representative of the Sudanese population as a whole. The prevalence of amenorrhoea among this group of lactating women was quite high (73%). Duration of lactational amenorrhoea ranged from 2 to 36 months with a median of 12 months.

Introduction of supplementary feeding had little effect on lactational amenorrhoea up to the 9th month of breast-feeding. Beyond the 12th month of breast-feeding, lactational amenorrhoea was significantly prolonged by postponing the introduction of supplementary feeding until the 4th month or later.

Ovulation, and hence conception, during lactational amenorrhoea was unpredictable. It occurred as early as the 3rd or as late as the 36th month postpartum. Conceptions interrupting lactational amenorrhoea soon after delivery (3–9 months) were more frequent among primiparous women. The failure rate of lactational amenorrhoea as a contraceptive was 8·4%. Though extremely high compared to that of the pill, lactational amenorrhoea was more useful as a fertility control mechanism because, in this study, a high proportion of women initiated pill use, but soon discontinued it because of side effects. Modern contraceptive practice was not prevalent. Amenorrhoeic mothers accepted the pill after the 6th month postpartum (41%), compared to lactating mothers whose menses had returned who started it much earlier. Forty-nine percent of the women studied relied completely on the protection of lactational amenorrhoea. Fifty-seven percent of all lactating women who used the combined pill reported a reduction in milk production. There are several policy implications of this study.

This article discusses the conflicting positions on the effectiveness of sex education and availability of birth control facilities in lowering the rate of teenage pregnancies. It provides evidence of a drop in the rate of teenage births only one-third of which can be accounted for by the rise in abortions. It concludes that teenagers must have been using birth control more effectively than in the early 1970s.

Although recent historic studies have shown high rates of population turnover prior to, during and after the demographic transition, little is known about the causes and consequences of migration, particularly during late adolescence when migration rates are highest. This paper assesses the relationship (a) between socio-occupational mobility and premarital migration patterns and (b) between these measures of mobility and family formation. Linked vital data for ever-married cohorts born between 1855 and 1974 on Sanday, Orkney Islands, Scotland, provided an opportunity for evaluation of changes in (1) distance migrated between birth and marriage and (2) age at marriage in a small rural isolate characteristic of other populations undergoing modernization. Measures of socio-occupational mobility indicated a secular increase in upper social classes and in labour force participation, particularly in non-agricultural sectors of the economy. Migration distance between birth and marriage decreased over time, associated with a convergence in the pattern of spatial mobility between population subgroups. Whereas there was little relationship between age at marriage and measures of spatial and socio-occupational mobility, changes in migration were strongly influenced by opportunities which differed between social classes and between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of the island economy.

Assortative mating for age and several anthropometric characteristics is considered in a sample of 68–70 husband-wife pairs from a rural Zapotec-speaking community in the Valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Conditions in the community with a population of approximately 1700 indicate chronic, mild-to-moderate undernutrition as reflected in high infant mortality rates, smaller body size of school children, and delayed biological maturation. Phenotypic assortative mating, as expressed in husband-wife correlations, is significant for age (r = 0·96), stature (r = 0·35) and grip strength (r = 0·29), but is not significant for body weight (r = 0·01), arm circumference (r = 0·07), the estimated midarm muscle circumference (r = 0·003), Quetelet's index (r = 0·02), and the ponderal index (r = 0·11). Controlling for age of husband and wife reduces the correlations for stature (r = 0·24) and grip strength (r = 0·12), but increases those for arm circumference (r = 0·21) and estimated midarm muscle circumference (r = 0·16). Grouping the spouses into younger (under 30 years of age) and older (30 years and older) results in significant spouse correlations for age, stature, arm circumference and estimated midarm muscle circumference in the younger group and for only age and fatness in the older group.

In a sample of women presenting for postcoital contraception in central London, two main categories of women were apparent. The first comprised those having regular intercourse: the majority of these had experienced a contraceptive method failure. Many of the second category had used no contraceptive; they were often having intercourse for the first or second time with a new partner, for the first time after an interval with an existing partner or for the first time ever. Many women had experienced difficulty in finding out where they could be treated but were persistent in their efforts to obtain the necessary expert advice. Almost all had used contraception in the past. Acceptance of a contraceptive method for future use was high.

The surnames of all adult residents of five neighbouring communities in the fenlands of Cambridgeshire are compared with each other and with those of the 165,533 persons married in England and Wales in the period January to March 1975. Among the villages the average coefficient of relationship by isonymy (Ri) is 76 × 10−5. The villages nearer together may have a tendency to higher values of Ri: the correlation of Ri with the natural log of distance between villages is −0·49, p = 0·07. The surnames of the five villages give a weighted average Ri with the whole area about 25 miles of 54 × 10−5 and with a zone 25–40 miles away of 45 × 10−5, whereas Ri with all England and Wales is 42 × 10−5. Rare surnames show a much sharper gradient and contribute approximately twice as much to the coefficient in the 25–40 mile zone and six times as much within 25 miles as found with all England and Wales. Moderately frequent surnames and even common surnames show the same gradient, but to a lesser degree. In the part of Cambridgeshire studied, the present distribution of surnames indicates a slight but appreciable local isolation, with the degree of relationship decreasing from among local villages to that between the villages and all England and Wales. This pattern is consistent with the theory of genetic inbreeding based on distance but there is considerable variability in individual instances.

The applicability of the Coale-McNeil marriage entry model to a Bangladesh population is examined. The distribution of ages at entry into the marriage market is taken as normal and the general waiting times to marriage as negative exponential. This article examines two types of data from Bangladesh: (1) the distributions of ages at entry to the marriage market and waiting times, to verify the basic assumptions of the model, and (2) cross-sectional survey data, to derive the fitted first-marriage schedule. In both instances, the model showed a good fit with the Bangladesh data. In the absence of accurate marital registration data, the model may be appropriately utilized to estimate the ages of marriage of females in Bangladesh.

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.

This paper, based on data from two independent but concurrent studies, seeks to show that the explanation for the inconclusive results concerning fertility and family type in India lies in the failure of previous researchers to take account of an important intervening variable, the family life cycle. Fertility levels are examined in nuclear and joint families in a village in Western India and changes in relationships at different stages in the family cycle are considered. The most important conclusion is that aggregate level observations which indicate that fertility varies according to family type are misleading. When other relevant factors such as age or stage in the family life cycle are controlled, there is little evidence of any intrinsic connection between fertility and family type.

This paper reports on a study of decision-making among voluntarily childless couples that was conducted in Britain. The discussion is based on evidence from an intensive interview survey with 38 childless husbands and wives. Four main orientations towards childlessness have been delineated, hedonistic, idealistic, emotional and practical. These are based on the decision-making processes childless couples go through. Each orientation is described, showing that childless individuals can differ markedly in their attitude towards not having children and in their values and ideas about life in general. It is maintained that these differences are important in understanding the complexities of voluntary childlessness and can have practical value in studying aspects of the phenomenon, such as forecasting changes in the pattern of childlessness.

The children in the cohort followed by the National Child Development Study were tested for cognitive ability at the age of eleven, and the influence of a number of biological and social variables was sought on the results of tests of reading, mathematics, verbal and non-verbal abilities. Reading relates strongly to social class, birth order and parental age, suggesting strong social influences upon it, but it is also related to height and acquired myopia, suggesting biological influences. Mathematics ability relates to social class and parental age, but not to birth order, but its relationship with height, birthweight and maternal smoking suggests biological effects. Verbal ability and non-verbal ability have relatively few correlates apart from sex and region. It appears that different cognitive abilities show different relationships to social, biological and personal variables.

In the Ntomba of Zaire, observation on weaning patterns shows that the young primipara receives special attention in terms of nutrition and expected activities. Anthropometric examination shows that there is a pronounced effect on physique, the resulting accumulation of fat providing a buffer against seasonal variation in food availability, and allowing her to meet the high energy cost of nursing. The biological effects of these cultural practices suggest that they should be regarded as adaptive.

Using data collected over a 12-month period (1977–78) from more than 15,000 hospital deliveries at a single maternity hospital in Tehran, Iran, we have examined the effects of previous pregnancy outcomes, breast-feeding and contraceptive use on birth spacing. The outcomes of previous pregnancies, particularly the most recent, significantly affect the length of the pregnancy interval, and so does breast-feeding. Pregnancy outcomes influence both breast-feeding and subsequent contraceptive behaviour, and breast-feeding adds to the degree of protection against pregnancy afforded by conventional contraception. Improved survivorship increases the length of pregnancy intervals most when it results in increased use of contraception and when breast-feeding is commonly practised for extended periods.