Although an interest in illegitimacy as a societal phenomenon is often limited by the scarcity of data, we may utilize recognized procedures of standardization in estimating illegitimacy ratios and rates where none are reported.

When we know only the age-specific marital status of women in the childbearing years (15 to 44) we may utilize age-specific legitimate and illegitimate fertility rates of the high and low illegitimacy countries, Jamaica and Japan, to estimate the range within which a national ratio would fall. In all there are sixty-eight major countries of the world for which we have that minimum data on age and marital status of females.

Some of those countries also report the number and percentage of illegitimate births but offer no information on age-specific rates. In those cases we may compare the ratios produced by the four model sets of rates (run against actual age and marital status for the sixty-eight nations) with the ratio actually reported by individual countries. Where the ratio produced by a model matches the reported ratio, with similar crude birth rates, we may assume similar age-specific legitimate and illegitimate fertility rates. Even where there is no perfect match we still learn something of the general pattern of rates.

Finally, the output of the standardization procedure also allows a comparison of the relative importance of marital status versus differential illegitimate fertility rates in determining the percentage of births out of wedlock.

While we must recognize the problems inherent in international comparisons of illegitimacy, the subject is of such significance that we cannot and we need not wait for more, or more perfect, data to be available. Rather, an increased interest in maximizing whatever comparative data we do find, may, in itself, aid in the improvement of methods and reliability of collection and publication of relevant information.

Child welfare clinics established in a rural Jamaican community for research purposes are described. These special clinics were able to devote more resources to the care of their children than is usual, yet the growth and health of these children were very similar to those in another group to whom this service was not available and who attended routine government welfare clinics only infrequently.

A study was undertaken to examine routinely recorded information on the births, marriages and deaths occurring in an extended population sharing the feature of a common surname. The material was obtained in quote form from the General Registry.

Simple manual analysis revealed a number of localities in which the ‘family’ was to be found and comparisons were made between vital events in each area over the period 1837–1960. An attempt was made to group bearers of the common surname by social class using the currently accepted convention.

Causes of death were coded according to the main headings of the classification introduced by the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1963. Variations in frequency of recording of different causes of death in different localities were found.

It is suggested that a more sophisticated study of populations composed of bearers of a shared surname might demonstrate a predictive value in terms of susceptibility or resistance to disease and thus become a recognized tool in the workshop of the geneticist.

Data are presented on the social backgrounds and IQs of a sample of scientists, their male sibs and their fathers. The range of IQ in the scientists is similar to the range of scores expected of the higher 25% of a representative general population sample.

The IQs of the scientists showed a positive correlation with social class. Differences in IQ between the scientists and their fathers in each social class are related to the distance the scientists have moved up the social scale. In the twenty-two families in which the IQs of the father and two male sibs are known the upwardly mobile sibs tend to have higher IQs than the non-mobile or downwardly mobile sibs.

In Class II there is evidence that stabilizing selection operates on IQ to maintain the mean IQ level. The effect on social stratification of such selection, together with increased educational opportunity, is discussed.

Data showing the relative ages of husbands and wives at marriage in one post-war year are available for many countries, and show that the age distribution of wives for men of a given age varies appreciably from country to country. So also does the age distribution of husbands for a given age of bride. The range of the average ages of marriage partners, from country to country within Europe, is about 2 years for either sex.

The first part of the paper investigates how far these variations are associated with the corresponding international differences in the supply of men and women available for marriage. There is some correlation—mostly positive at the younger and older marriage ages and negative at the central marriage ages. The results show an affinity with those of a similar study based on time trends in one country alone: England and Wales.

In so far as age distributions at marriage are not directly associated with the supply of people available as partners, international variations may be regarded as the expression of differences in social custom, in economic history or in taste. In the second part of the paper such differences are exhibited and discussed. For a given age of one spouse, partners in most countries are older than in Britain but younger wives are found in some Communist countries and also in the Commonwealth.

In the final section, the development of the marriage age experience in two countries—France, and England and Wales—is compared over the period 1911–61, and some interesting differences are revealed, especially in relation to the effects of world wars, of economic depressions and the history of contraceptives. In 1911, appreciably older husbands and younger wives were found in France than in Britain, but today the differences between the two countries are much smaller.

A total of 249 children and 805 adults living in the Asai valley of the New Guinea highlands was examined and measured for height, weight, sitting height and skinfold thickness. Mean ages for groups of children were calculated from regression equations of height on age for different dental stages.

The growth of the Asai child in all measured parameters is slower than that reported from any other world situation. The relationship between the growth of the Asai child and adult size confirms the finding, previously reported for New Guinean populations, that adult stature in a traditional society is proportionally related to, and possibly determined by, the growth rate of children in that society.

Adult stature, which is at the lower end of the range for New Guinean populations, falls slightly with age, due to a decrease in trunk length. Weights and skinfold thickness, in common with other New Guinean populations, show a progressive fall with age.

The role of malnutrition in the slow growth pattern is discussed and evidence is presented from New Guinean and other studies to support the hypothesis that natural selection for slow growth and shorter adult height occurs in conditions of nutritional deprivation.

Heights and weights were measured of 5600 children aged 5 to 14 years, of predominantly African origin, attending primary schools situated in rural areas of St Vincent. The mean size of these children was intermediate between that of London children recorded in 1905 to 1912 and in 1959 and not greatly different from that found in recent years in most other parts of the West Indies. These St Vincent children were larger than those measured in a small survey 20 years ago. For a given height, they were lighter than London children in 1959 and obesity was much less common. Signs of serious malnutrition were rare. A standard of mean heights and weights of West Indian children from lower socio-economic classes and of predominantly African origin has been calculated from the results of recent surveys in five different countries.

Earlier studies on psychotic patients suggested that their illegitimate fertility was lower than expected on the basis of general population trends. The present findings were part of a study on marriage and fertility of women suffering from schizophrenia and affective disorders since the impact of community orientated psychiatry; 1300 women were selected from admissions to a London hospital during 1955–63 and followed up until August 1966.

The proportion of total live births which were illegitimate was 19·1% among the schizophrenics, 7·5% among the affectives and 12·7% in the general population of London during 1961. The high illegitimate fertility of schizophrenics is probably related to their low probability of marriage; more births occurred before than after admission, especially among the older group of women suffering from affective disorders. Most of the births were the result of a serious relationship rather than casual promiscuity, and they were more frequent among Jamaican patients and patients with probable psychopathic personalities in both clinical groups. The genetic and social relevance of the study is discussed.

The basal body temperature was recorded by 1353 healthy fertile women aged 18 to 49 years inclusive through 12,247 cycles. The post-ovulatory (hyperthermic) phase of the cycle was significantly longer by 1·31 days in cycles with a slow or staircase rise of temperature than in cycles with an acute rise. The hyperthermic phase increased in length in a rectilinear fashion from 10 to 13 days as the total cycle length rose from 22 to 29 days; over total cycle lengths from 29 to 33 days the length of the hyperthermic phase remained around 13 days.

A semi-longitudinal study of factors influencing child growth in a rural community in Jamaica provided an opportunity to explore the relationships between diarrhoea, respiratory infections and body weight.

Respiratory infections and diarrhoea both reached peak incidences between the ages of 6 and 24 months when children are at highest risk of malnutrition. Respiratory infections had no demonstrable influence on growth. Diarrhoea was more common in boys than in girls and more common in underweight children. It had no influence on long-term weight increases, though it did have the expected influence on short-term increments.

The findings suggested that much of the diarrhoea seen in this community of children may have been secondary to undernutrition rather than a cause of it.

An analysis of pregnancy and fertility trends, utilizing the Bogue pregnancy history technique, indicates that pregnancy and fertility declined by approximately 27% in a rural area of East Pakistan between 1958 and 1967. The results reflect the impact of the organizer approach to family planning as well as of the commercial distribution programme. If the present trend continues, it could be expected that women in the more fertile age groups of 15 to 19 years and 20 to 24 years will show a greater reduction in total pregnancy and fertility rates than those in the older age groups. It appears also that foetal mortality may play an important role in affecting variation in fertility in particular segments of the age structure. This suggestion, however, should be treated with caution since the presence of sampling errors could have affected the apparent incidence of foetal mortality.

A sample of 170 Regina school children, divided into subgroups according to family size and socio-economic status, was tested on the Otis Beta Mental Ability Test. The results demonstrated the existence of a definite relationship between intelligence and socio-economic status, but no significant relationship between family size and IQ, except among low socio economic status males. These results, interpreted as reflecting the changing relationship between intelligence and family size, are possibly the outcome of a changing fertility pattern within the various socio-economic status groups.

A semi-longitudinal study of growth in children up to 5 years of age in a rural Jamaican community is described. One of its aims was to investigate the relationship between growth and factors in the social environment such as family structure, parental characteristics, housing and income. A strong relationship between growth and socio-economic variables was found. This apparently masked whatever effects the quality of care or separation from parents may have had upon child growth.

Age-specific mortality rates have been used to illustrate certain aspects of the characteristics of old age. A consideration of the experience of the ageing person in his fifties and early sixties suggests that during this period he comes to recognize death as being an increasingly common characteristic of his age group. Thus the standard procedure for studying old age problems in a sample of people over the age of 65 may miss the period of life when people are making the crucial adjustments to old age and may give a distorted view of some gerontological problems. Certain demographic aspects of old age are considered in detail with regard to the occurrence of, first, widowhood and, second, social isolation.

This paper describes the main findings of the first stage in a planned longitudinal study of marriage and family planning amongstarepresentative sample of recently married couples in a northern city. The long-term aim of the research is to evaluate, by means of interivews repeated at successive 5-year intervals in the lives of these couples, the relationship between intended and achieved family size and to assess the factors associated with relative success and failure. The initial series of interviews provides much new information on patterns of mate selection, marriage and family planning intentions; it also represents the only recent survey of contraceptive behaviour during the first year of marriage.

The major determinants of family-building behaviour are assessed and, amongst these, religion is found to be the most significant. Its effects are, however, mitigated by considerable marrying out amongst Catholics. The notion of the married couple as a rational decision-making unit in matters of family planning is supported by this survey and there is a rela tionship between desired family size and the efficacy of contraceptive usage. Two points of major methodological interest in fertility analysis are dis cussed.

Haemophilia, one of the oldest known genetic disorders, imposes varying degrees of disability on those affected. A survey of 137 haemophiliacs, seventy-eight adults and fifty-nine children, in the north of England was conducted to discover the extent of social, educational and employment problems created by the disease, while investigation of sixty-nine mothers of patients provided information on its impact on family life.

Some problems are adequately met, others not; those of education and employment are the most serious. Educational deficiencies are due to incomplete and interrupted schooling. Choice of employment is severely restricted for them, and stability of employment is adversely affected by episodes of ill-health. But with improved methods of medical treatment the children are losing less school time than the adults did, fewer of them attend schools for the physically handicapped, and this should result in the attainment of better educational standards, and therefore more hope for permanent and satisfactory employment in the future.

The birth of a haemophilic child markedly affects the family, particularly the mother, but again there is a difference in response between the present and the older generation of mothers.