That married people have lower death rates than either the unmarried or the widowed has been recognized since the mid-19th century. Marital condition involves diverse and complex selection processes and is associated with differences in life style, factors which may contribute to differences in mortality. Mortality statistics of married people are presented here by age of surviving partner in an attempt to assess the influence of age difference between spouses.

The determinants of fertility variation among districts of Sri Lanka are explored by multiple regression analysis. The proportion of young women who are married (age 20–24), and the proportion of women of reproductive age who have received at least 5 years of education, account respectively for 46% and 24% of district variation in total fertility. Infant mortality variation accounts for only 8%. From the results it is argued that encouragement of education of women and postponement of marriage is one practical measure which will help to reduce Sri Lankan fertility.

A function is proposed for estimating the proportion of women who resumed menstruation at a given time post-partum on the basis of the proportion of women breast feeding at that time. The function was fitted to 25 series of incidences from nine countries (236 time points), most countries providing three contrasting groups: urban (well-to-do), urban (poor) and rural. The average error of the estimate within series was 0·08. At any given time post-partum variation in breast feeding proportions [explained] on average 85% of between series variance in the proportions of menstruating women. Some uses of the function are briefly considered.

Half the women in this study had resumed menses by the 6th month post-partum. Concurrent with these findings, less than 50% were still breast-feeding at the 6th month post-partum. The majority of these breast-feeding women were partially breast-feeding. By the 6th post-partum month more than 90% of the women had resumed intercourse and slightly less than half were using contraceptives. Nevertheless, the cross-sectional data indicate that only 25% of the women were using contraceptives at 12 months post-partum. These results show a much shorter period of lactational amenorrhoea than has been reported for a rural area of Bangladesh.

Because of the widely held view that a family size of less than two children is undesirable, this paper investigates the extent to which medical conditions occur among one-child and childless families and influence ultimate family size. A partial solution to the inability to have more than one child is adoption, and the extent to which couples use adoption to attain the desired family size is discussed.

Regardless of whether or not family size is directly affected, medical factors represent a form of crisis in the lives of women concerned, and thus the incidence rates themselves are of interest. The data suggest that more than one-half of women in Australia experience such a crisis during their childbearing history.

Consideration is given to the impact of the change in the Abortion Laws in 1968 on the national stillbirth rate. From investigation of the demographic characteristics of women having abortions it appears that abortions accounted for at least 26% of the fall in the stillbirth rate from 1969 to 1974.

This paper examines the official abortion statistics for South Australia since the legalization of abortion in January 1970. The incidence of abortion is shown to be increasing steadily—in 1976 more than half of the extramarital pregnancies were terminated and the overall ratio of abortions to live births was nearly 1:6. Most abortion patients were single, young women. Comparison of fertility levels in South Australia with the rest of Australia shows that the fertility decline has been much more rapid in South Australia, suggesting that unless the South Australian women are more efficient users of contraception than other Australian women, a significant proportion of the fertility decline in South Australia has to be attributed to legalized abortion.

The distribution of phenotypes in the tongue-rolling polymorphism in two samples of university undergraduates, totalling 1066 individuals, shows no difference between the sexes but large differences between groups drawn from different faculties and particularly between the life sciences and the arts. There are also indications of a difference in distribution between arts students living in halls of residence and those living elsewhere.

The genetics of tongue-rolling is not yet critically established but, onthe assumption that most of the phenotypic variation observed has a genetic basis, the data suggest that the loci governing this character may also contribute to variation in personality characteristics which influence choice of subject of study.

Cases of βthalassaemia and haemophilia (factor 8 and 9 deficiency) in pre-war Lebanon were examined for social and genetic information, using medical records. All diagnosed cases admitted to the American University Hospital in Beirut between 1960 and 1970 were examined. Muslims and families of lower socioeconomic status predominated in the data, and many cases were located in the semi-rural poverty belt of Beirut, where many rural migrants and Palestinian refugees congregate. Parental consanguinity rates among male haemophiliacs were used as estimates for the general population. Consanguinity is higher in the thalassaemic population. In the Christian population the incidence of this autosomal recessive disorder appears to have been inflated by consanguinity more than in the Muslims

The monthly distribution of births in the south-eastern states of Nigeria shows a seasonal pattern with a peak during the months of April-June, and a trough during November-January. This suggests that a disproportionate number of conceptions or matings occurs during the relatively cool months of July-September. In south-eastern Nigeria, these are months of relative idleness characterized by reduced work on the farms, abundance of fruits, vegetables and palm wine, and an increased tendency to stay indoors due to heavy and frequent rains. These conditions are considered conducive to increased intercourse

This paper examines the effects of income and consumption of modern goods on fertility level and contraceptive practice among working class families in three Iranian cities. A j-shaped relationship is found between fertility and income after controlling for other variables. Expectation about future changes in income does not have any significant effect on the number of children ever born, but those who expect an increase in their income in the near future are more likely to be currently using contraception. Consumption of modern goods is positively related to fertility level and does not have any significant effect on contraceptive practice.