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"This paper examines some...socio-economic determinants of lone parenthood in Great Britain, in an attempt to understand further the reasons behind the rapid growth in lone parenthood. Since divorce and separation are the major 'causes' of lone parenthood, this paper focuses on the determinants of marital dissolution among women with dependent children. The empirical analysis is guided by hypotheses suggested by the 'economic theory of marriage'. Hazard regression equations are estimated with data collected in the 1980 Women and Employment Survey...." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the lifetime migration patterns into the major cities of selected developed and developing countries. This study was confined to cities in...the United States and certain Asian and African countries with relevant published data.... This paper has shown that some lifetime population movements were exceptionally high. Two-thirds of the residents of the major U.S. cities in 1970 were born elsewhere. The major cities in sub-Saharan Africa were second highest with 60 percent. Asian cities followed with 48 percent of their residents being lifetime migrants and the cities of North Africa were lowest with less than a third. Finally, the native population born and reared in most urban agglomerations will probably comprise a larger percentage of the total population in those areas in the future." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"In this paper we examine the living arrangements of older unmarried women--that is, single, divorced, or widowed women--in The Netherlands....[The] paper analyzes the distribution of [such] women across several types of living arrangements, including an institutionalized category ('residential homes'). The factors influencing this distribution that are examined include indices of functional limitations, kin availability, and sociodemographic background factors. The most important variables appear to be the measures of functional limitations, and the results are indicative of effective targeting of housing resources on those who appear to need them, judged by our measures of physical capacity." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"In this paper, we describe a potential source of useful data for estimating disease onset, recovery and death rates, and derive the necessary equations for estimating the rates. The limitations of the method, both theoretical and practical, are described, and numerical results are reported in the cases of two Italian health surveys of the 1980s.... Our goal in this paper is to study quality of life, and to attempt to provide measures which may allow health policy decisions affecting quality of life. For this purpose, estimates of morbidity provided by general population health surveys would seem to be appropriate." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

This paper is divided into 2 distinct parts. In the 1st, a method to construct a pattern of age-specific fertility is illustrated, which individuates model schedules corresponding to different levels of total fertility. The particular pattern proposed is based on a mathematical law--essentially consisting of 7 logistic functions--which relates the % age-specific schedules to the value of the total fertility rate. An application of this model is described in order to construct such a pattern, using age-specific fertility rates observed in the Italian regions in the years from 1965 to 1979. In the 2nd part, a particular use of the above pattern is proposed, concerning a method to estimate the age-specific rates and the index synthetizing them. This method needs known data regarding the annual number of births and the numbers of women in the childbearing age groups. It can be seen, in fact, that the whole of the above data individuates in the pattern a well-defined fertility schedule, exactly representing the estimated figures. As the calculation of these figures is formally connected with the solution of a system of equations, it is shown--also through a numerical example--how that solution can be easily obtained by an iterative procedure. Finally, the actual pattern built in the 1st part of this paper is employed to carry out some applications--on the national as well as on the regional level--of the proposed method of estimation. (author's modified)

"The paper presents a study on the length of [the human] menstrual cycle and of its phases [using] a data base provided by the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council of London.... An original aspect of the research is the identification of classes of gynecological age, that is age groups homogeneous as far as the cycle length or the length of its phases is concerned. In spite of the evident dominance of the preovulatory phase length on the total cycle length, the work has evidenced a strong compensatory effect between the pre and postovulatory phases, which leads the total cycle length to concentrate around 27-28 days.... A method to determine a distribution model for cycle length is proposed via kernel density estimation." (EXCERPT)

"In this paper, it is the purpose of the authors to show how to apply--in historical demography--some statistical techniques to estimate within the same model the age pattern of mortality, the intensity of relevant crises, as well as the possible presence of cohort effects.... In particular, we expect to find higher mortality effects for cohorts affected by famine periods during their developmental phases, as well as lower mortality effects for cohorts subsequent to the most important mortality crises.... The application will use data collected for the population of Chioggia (Dogado of Venice) in the seventeenth century." (EXCERPT)

"This paper provides an analysis of the impact of the population ageing on social expenditure.... A dynamic macrosimulation model...is applied to assess the impact of the ageing of the population on the Italian social security, health care and education systems. The main conclusions are that around 2030 social expenditure will reach a peak despite the 1995 reform of the pension system. A further cut in pension expenditure is therefore needed to [offset] the increase in the share of the retired as a proportion of the active population." (EXCERPT)

"The purpose of this paper is to explore the usage of demographic methods in applied demography [in the United States]. The reason for the exploration is to document the range of methods being used to help address a wide range of public and private sector opportunities and problems. A limited content analysis of applied studies is performed." (EXCERPT)

"This paper makes use of a recently established comparative series of period and cohort life tables for the Netherlands for the period 1850-1991. Trends in period and cohort life expectancy at birth for males and females are discussed. A simple spline function is used to identify turning points in these trends. Trends in the contribution of specific age groups to the changes in life expectancy and to male excess mortality were studied using the Arriaga method. For this purpose, the results of period and cohort analysis were compared." (SUMMARY IN ITA AND FRE)

"According to the theory of demographic transition, fertility differentials by education tend to become strongly negative in the early stages of transition, because family limitation tends to catch on first among the more educated. As the transition proceeds, contraceptive use diffuses to the less educated, and fertility differentials by education eventually tend to reconverge. The question addressed here is: Do fertility differentials by education disappear or become positive in advanced industrial societies? Evidence presented in this paper indicates that in the United States they do not. As late as 1990, the latest year that we consider, fertility differentials by education were still strongly negative." (SUMMARY IN ITA AND FRE)

This paper presents a detailed discussion of the impact of World War II on subsequent fertility behavior a generation later in Italy. The changes in fertility were delayed and induced by a transgenerational process precipitated by war. War anomie and anomie in the rules of family formation are "symptoms" and not effects of the broad structural changes and historical upheavals during the 30 years of war. Fertility behavior is not construed to be an inevitable outcome of causal processes, but as alternative responses to life situations. The author bases this explanatory model of macrodemographic processes on a variant of Brown and Harris' etiological model that explains the occurrence of depression. It is argued that demographic models of European fertility are needed that acknowledge "a radical form of war that acts on reciprocity systems susceptible to change" and "intervenes to modify the subsequent transgenerational (family) relations." A research design is not now available that relies on the tools of history and anthropology. Thus, the demography of fertility may be reduced to a "mere bookkeeping of vital statistical data or simple economics of resources." The author's new pattern of family formation in Italy considers the "regional family culture and structure to be symptom-formation factors relating to the war and transformations in systems of family relations and exchange." These family changes are linked to war anomie and "changes in the logic of transition strategies from suppression to disconfirmation." War anomie is linked with a generational impact that intervenes in the relationship between changes in the logic of transition strategies and the decline in births. The decline in births is the response to background factors, precipitating events, and symptom-formation or structural factors. The author states that the second demographic transition does not represent a break with prior urban lifestyles and does not modify general trends continuing from the first demographic transition.

"This paper addresses the extent to which the behaviour of migrants...diverges from the pattern observed in the country of origin and converges on that of the country of destination.... In the first part of the analysis we compare the family formation patterns of Turks and Moroccans living in Flanders and Brussels with the patterns of Belgians living in the same regions on the one hand and with the populations of Turkey and Morocco on the other hand. In the second part we look in more detail at the behaviour of Turks and Moroccans in Belgium, distinguishing between the first and the second generation. To what extent, if any, do the immigrant communities diverge from the countries of origin on various aspects of family formation behaviour, and to what extent is there convergence with the patterns observed for Belgians?" (SUMMARY IN ITA AND FRE)

"This paper describes a new method for indirectly estimating age schedules of net migration. The method is illustrated with historical data for the United States. The analysis employs a recently developed technique--iterative intracohort interpolation--to estimate age schedules of net migration from pairs of enumerations of the foreign born by age. The data required for this application are enumerations of the foreign born (or more generally of those born outside the enumeration area) by age in two successive censuses, a life table presumed to reflect the mortality experience of the foreign born during the intercensal period, and, optionally, data on variations in the overall level of migration during the intercensal period. The procedure provides estimates of the average annual number of foreign born net migrants during a decade by their age at the time of entry/exit." (SUMMARY IN ITA AND FRE)

"The objective of the present paper is to summarise trends in geographic mobility and expectancy in the U.S.A. between 1956-1987, using Current Population Survey (CPS) data and to determine the responsible factors that can affect mobility rates utilizing logistic regression based on 1979 and 1980 public use sample tapes data from the National Health Interview Survey.... Mobility rates reveal a general downward trend in the U.S.A.... Overall mobility rates remained rather constant at slightly less than 20 per cent from the mid fifties to the mid sixties. This has fallen steadily since 1970 to a relatively low current rate of about 17 per cent. This rate rose slightly from 1985 to 1987." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"This paper applies regression decomposition procedures to the infant mortality decline in Germany 1871-1925.... Data concern 59 administrative areas at seven times. In contrast to contemporary less developed countries, little of this historical infant mortality decline is explained either by changes in the relationships between infant mortality and the variables considered here or by exogenous factors. Rather, trends in variable values account for most of the decline. Smaller family size and more hygienic child care improved living conditions for infants, thereby increasing their survivorship." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"This paper proposes a method for controlling for compositional factors in the measurement of poverty. The method is based on the notion of 'direct standardisation', used extensively in the field of demography.... With this class of standardised measures, it [is] possible to examine underlying differences in poverty while controlling for compositional factors known to be correlated with the incidence and intensity of poverty. The method is illustrated by examining the relationship between household structure and poverty in seven European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Great Britain. The data are centered around 1985 and form part of the Luxembourg Income Study." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"Many authors have examined whether the National Center for Health Statistics should continue to use the 1940 U.S. population as the standard for the computation of age-sex-adjusted birth rates and age-adjusted death rates, or replace it by a more recent population. It is shown that standardization by using a single population as the standard leads to internally inconsistent results. The standardization technique suggested in this paper not only generates internally consistent rates, but also puts an end to the continuing debate as to which one of the actual populations should be used as the standard. The technique is applied to the U.S. data to recompute the adjusted birth and death rates for the years 1940-1990." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

This paper considers policy shifts regarding demographic behavior in industrialized countries in light of both trends in such behavior over the recent past as well as projections of this behavior according to the United Nations mid-range assessments prepared in 1988. Recent trends in population change and their projections were presented in a group of four industrialized regions and the appropriateness of policy and policy change in light of perceptions was also considered for future policy direction. Demographic change in industrialized nations from 1965 to 2025 revealed that the population would grow to 1.5 billion; however, the share of northern and western Europe would decline from 21% to 16%. Fertility would remain 5-10% below replacement level. There would also be a further increase of 4 years in life expectancy until 2025, with the longest extensions in eastern Europe (5 years or 8%). During the past several decades the industrial regions' populations residing in urban areas has risen from 62% to 72%, and this is projected to continue to rise to 79% by 2025, with the greatest increases in southern and eastern Europe. The share of dependents who are at least 65 years old is likely to double from its initial level of about 25%. Government views on demographic behavior from 1976 and 1989 are also compared and summarized. Perception and policies on the rate of population growth changed in 6 countries between 1976 and 1989. Cyprus and Hungary had shifted policies towards enhancing the rate of population growth. Regarding the fertility rates, 8 countries changed perceptions; in Switzerland, Cyprus, and Romania the policy regarding access to contraception was changed. Regarding international migration, 10 governments reported a shift in their perception and 4 indicated previous dissatisfaction for the change, which became more restrictive. Regarding mortality, 8 countries considered that the level had become unacceptable, 4 of these in eastern Europe.

"In this paper socio-economic differential mortality [in the Netherlands] at the individual level will be analyzed by two national and two local surveys. The purpose is to describe socio-economic differential mortality in several periods....[It is found that] mortality by social classes among males was higher among lower classes in the Netherlands in 1896-1903. The gradient...disappeared in 1947-1952. There was...socio-economic differential mortality again in 1959-1961 and 1972-1981." (SUMMARY IN ITA)

"This paper addresses issues of elderly immigrants in Canada within two areas: their characteristics as immigrants and their contribution to the social phenomenon of the aging of the Canadian population. The patterns of net immigration of persons aged 60 years and over are identified according to sex, age and place of origin of immigrants.... Emigration of this group is studied separately. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the elderly immigrant population displays migration patterns significantly different from that of the total immigrant population. Older immigrants participate even more extensively than their younger counterparts in the process of remigration or return migration. As a consequence, an increase of the proportion of older immigrants...does not necessarily accelerate the aging of the Canadian population." (SUMMARY IN ITA)

Nuptial behavior has changed considerably in Spain during the decade of the 1980s. This paper describes recent nuptiality trends and explores some socio-demographic factors that influence marital timing. Event history analysis is applied to retrospective marital histories collected in the 1985 Spanis National Survey of Fertility. Discrete hazard models are used in order to capture the changing dynamics of the nuptiality process throughout the age range. The results indicate that a trend towards late marriage has evolved in Spain during the last decade, without a concomitant rise in nonmarital cohabitation. The patterns of marriage postponement is especially pronounced among women residing in urban areas and those better educated.

"From the data contained in the 1984 and 1986 Surveys of Family Expenditures, which were carried out by Statistics Canada...this paper examines the consumption patterns of those households where the head is under 60, those 60-74, and those 75 and over. The first examination is of disaggregated expenditure patterns. Compared with household heads under the age of 60, those between 60 and 75 spend proportionately more on food and shelter, and smaller proportions on clothing, household operations, household furnishings, and recreation. These differences are accentuated when the household head is older than 75. The analysis is also done controlling for such variables as education, region, marital status, sex of household head, place of birth, and language." (SUMMARY IN ITA)

"The purpose of this paper has been to assess empirically the question of whether women's growing economic independence, resulting from better education, is one of the major factors in determining the timing of marriage and motherhood in Italy.... We have analysed the life histories of a sample of Italian women from different cohorts, collected on the occasion of the National Survey on Family Structures and Behaviours carried on by the National Institute of Statistics.... The effect of level of education is negative. That is, it increases the age of entry into marriage. However, the size of the effect is small and seems limited to the passage from youth to adulthood, because the longer time the woman spends in the educational system increases the age at which she feels herself ready to marry. As far as the timing of the first child, it is almost independent of educational attainment, once marital status is taken into account." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"The present paper proposes a measure of the shape (rectangularity) of the mortality curve which is statistically orthogonal to (independent of) the level of mortality over a broad range of national life tables, both historical and contemporary.... We have proposed [using]...a ratio of survival probabilities in two broad age ranges, in middle and young adulthood. It is suggested that this measure is an effective first approximation, which can be built on both methodologically and substantively, in order to obtain a better understanding of the social and other conditions producing rectangular and troughed mortality curves." Data for selected developed countries are used to test the model. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"The aim of this paper is to study [sex,] age and cause differential mortality in the 95 Italian provinces during the last twenty years...." Tabular data on causes of death are presented and compared for regions in Italy and between Italy and the international community. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"Data obtained from follow-up of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys Longitudinal Study 1971 Census sample have been used to look at women's mortality differentials at ages 15-59 in England and Wales....In this paper we focus on married women and use age of youngest child as a measure of life-cycle stage. We relate this to whether the woman was a housewife, or was in full or part-time paid employment, so as to examine how these affect differences in mortality by social class. We find that socio-economic mortality differences persist irrespective of life-cycle stage.... Housewives married to men in manual occupations experienced death rates over one and a half times as high as those married to men in non-manual occupations. For women in employment the differences by husbands' social class are of a lesser magnitude.... Differences in the mortality of those in full and part-time work depend on the woman's own social class and are greater for non-manual than manual classes." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"The paper investigates the interrelationship between fertility and infant mortality and its economic determinants by time-series methods for historical and modern Germany. It is studied whether the causal effects of infant mortality on fertility have to be considered as hoarding or replacement, and whether the costs of nutrition have an influence on family decision making about demographic variables. Results show that there are indications for replacement motives, and that economic factors matter." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

"This paper examines the progress of infant mortality in the primary developed countries after 1960. A strong decrease of the phenomenon was measured everywhere although its intensity was independent of the starting levels. The most rapid decline occurred in Japan and several countries in southern and northwestern Europe. The slowest decline occurred in the Soviet Union. In some countries, such as Romania, Czechoslovakia and the United States, short term fluctuations interposed themselves on the declining trend. The differences in mortality between the two sexes were generally reduced in those populations with low infant mortality, while the opposite happened in the case of most of the others." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA)

Studies carried out in foreign countries (US and UK, mainly) indicate that maternal characteristics, such as age, parity, social class, and prenatal care, are related to child's growth, mortality, and morbidity, as well as to cigarette smoking. These characteristics may act as confounding variables in the analysis of the effects of maternal smoking on babies in fetal and neonatal periods. Until now there has been a lack of information on the subject, because even the most recent available data concern women over age 14 regardless of obstetric history. This paper deals with smoking habits, before and during pregnancy, of 37,664 women included in a multicenter survey of perinatal preventive medicine (MPPI), which was performed in 6 Italian centres (Trieste, Milan, Parma, Rome, Naples, Bari) between 1973 and 1979, with the financial support of the Italian National Research Council. The results of the MPPI and other surveys are compared and the association between maternal smoking habits and sociodemographic background is investigated by multiple correspondence analysis. As to Italy, unlike UK and US, in the 1970s women of high social status show the highest prevalence of the smoking habit. Moreover, in pregnancy, the large majority gives up smoking, or at least reduces it, mainly in high socioeconomic levels, so that the proportion of pregnant women who keep on smoking over 10 cigaretts per day is very low (0.5-3.8%) and poorly related to sociodemographic factors. Therefore, it seems unlikely that these may exert serious confounding effects on the relationships between smoking in pregnancy and perinatal outcome.

This article outlines a new system for computerized family reconstitution. It has been developed in the last 10 years by a multidisciplinary team of Quebec researchers belonging to the Inter-University Research Center on Populations (SOREP). Basically, this system is characterized by 1) an attempt to computerize as much as possible every step involved in the process of reconstitution, 2) a set of tools devised for identifying and measuring all forms and degrees of similarity between names and surnames, 3) a technique to process cases of ambiguous links, 4) a set of programs used to assess the quality of the data and the strength of the links created, and 5) an attempt to maximize the performance of the linkage work in terms of both efficiency and accuracy. The system has been designed to support several kinds of analyses, from social history and demography to population genetics. The paper contains a brief overview of the current state of research in the field record linkage, an introduction to the Saguenay population register, and a description of the system itself which has utilized sucessfully in the last year on the 660,000 Saguenay parish records, covering the period 1842-1971.

"A tentative approximation of the expectation of life at 60-65 years, for populations with defective demographic statistics, is explored and expounded on the basis of a recent Horiuchi and [Coale] paper." The method is applied to data for El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Peninsular Malaysia, and it is shown that the method can be used on actual data, although it requires some drastic rounding off. (summary in ENG, FRE)

This paper investigates the age patterns of women at 1st birth using a marriage model which relates observed distributions of 1st marriage frequencies (FMFs) to a standard schedule where FMF is defined as the number of 1st marriages in an age interval divided by the number of women, regardless of marital status, in the interval. The data collected for the prupose of studying the fit of the marriage model to 1st birth distributions are from Finland and Italy for ages 15-49 from the years 1932-75. The 2nd application exploits the parametric nature of the model by using the fit of the model to incomplete 1st birth data to project the unobserved portion of the 1st birth distribution. The results provide evidence of increasing heterogeneity of women with regard to their age at 1st birth, no trend toward delayed childbearing, and a secular increase in the incidence of childlessness in 1/2 of the populations analyzed, with no trend in the other 1/2. Several directions for future research include: 1) a detailed examination of the fit of the marriage model to higher order birth frequency distributions will be worthwhile; 2) it might be useful to explore the extent to which the fit of the marriage model to 1st birth data can be used to infer the age of entry into cohabitation in different populations, which would prove especially interesting for populations in which marriage does not signal the onset of "fruitful cohabitation" for a substantial proportion of the population; 3) the marriage model might be extended by letting its parameters depend on covariates, which would permit analyses of the determinants of age at marriage and 1st birth to incorporate known empirical regularities characterizing the age distributions of these events; and 4) the period adjustment model would be extended by allowing the proportionate period effects to vary unrestrictively by age group.

"In this paper the mathematical principles behind the construction of multistate life tables are presented. [They are] then applied to study the patterns of first marriage, widowhood, divorce and remarriage of the Australian female population for the year 1971." Comparisons are also made with data for the United States in 1970. The author finds that "the first marriage patterns of both countries are very similar. But the divorce pattern is different. Though the probability that a marriage will end in a divorce is much lower in Australia than in the United States, the proportion of divorcees remarrying is only slightly lower in Australia.... Expected duration of a marriage is about 10.5 years longer in Australia than in the United States." (summary in FRE, ITA)

The purpose of this paper is to present some insights into household structure at the beginning and end of the eighteenth century in the Roman parish of S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Parish registers and annual "Listae" of the population are sources of data. About 5,000 individuals from 1,000 families, comprising roughly three percent of the population, have been studied. Households are classified following Laslett's criteria and also according to the social and economic position of the head of the household. The author examines factors that led to an unusual pattern of cohabitation in household situations. It is suggested that the characteristic high level of masculinity seen in this population may be due to this household pattern, in which many of the people living together had no family relationship.

"The objective of this paper is to justify the use of Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models for birth time series data of the province of Ontario [Canada]." The results show that the model provides satisfactory short-term forecasts. "It shows that along with seasonal varations, non-seasonal variations due to reporting etc. must be taken into account for interpreting similar time series data." (summary in FRE, ITA)

This paper aims at showing that the differences presently observed throughout the world between live birth sex ratios have existed, at least in part, in Western Europe too. The study of chronological series for Western countries with a relatively long registration has enabled the disclosure of significant evolutions over time. The increase of values slightly higher than 104 boys for 100 girls to values nearer to 106 has been observed in several countries, in particular in Belgium. Also included is a brief synthesis of differential factors in order to try to simulate the impact of the evolution of demographic parameters on the variations of masculinity at birth. Demographic factors include stillbirths, age of parents, and birth order, among others. The necessity of a multidimensional approach is stressed. (author's modified)

This paper proposes a new procedure for estimating the level and timing of fertility control within marriage as well as the social and economic correlates of these reproductive parameters. The method precludes the need for data such as trends in birth intervals and age at last birth and other data that is often not available. The method does require data on children ever born, age at marriage, and the socioeconomic characteristics of couples, information often gathered in censuses and surveys. Some assumptions of the model are: in the absence of deliberate fertility control, a woman can reproduce at each age according to a natural fertility schedule. A couple can choose the date after marriage at which control begins, and the level at which it is controlled. Application of this procedure to samples of US women aged 45-54 from the 1965 National Fertility Survey and women aged 20-44 from the 1970 National Fertility Survey yielded results that were consistent with analyses of special surveys on contraceptive use. In particular, for the sample of older women, it was estimated that the control of fertility began relatively soon after marriage, with control beginning at later durations for younger women, and that the extent of control was quite high, with the average level of control of non-Catholics exceeding that of Catholics. The evidence of early control is consistent with other research; specifically, the 1960 Growth of American Families Study. For the sample of younger women, it was estimated that the duration of marriage after which control began was longer for older women and for Catholics, but that the extent of fertility control, once it began, did not differ by religion.

"The purpose of the present paper is to seek to elucidate the effects of recent and future population development upon the economic welfare of the Danish population as a whole, but especially of the elderly." It is shown that the proportion of the elderly in the total population has increased from 10 percent in 1900 to 20 percent in 1984 and is likely to increase to 21 percent in 2000 and 30 percent in 2025. The consequent increase in the dependency burden on those of working age is examined. The need for greater economic efficiency, higher fertility, and increased labor force participation by the elderly in order for the country to respond to this challenge is noted. (summary in FRE, ITA)

This paper describes a simple model for birth interval survival, assuming independence of fertility and mortality. The probability M that a mother's last born child is dead by the time the next is born is computed. The sensitivity of M to reproductive parameters describing a woman's postpartum infecund interval and her fecundability is found generally using a function fitted to the Brass African Standard life table in childhood. Hence a way is suggested of making a correction to M to allow for shortened birth intervals following infants' deaths. The value of M as an estimate in the "preceding births technique" of Brass and Macrae is also considered.

"This article outlines a new system for computerized family reconstitution. It has been developed in the last ten years by a multidisciplinary team of Quebec researchers belonging to the inter-university research center on populations (SOREP). Basically, this system is characterized by: a) an attempt to computerize as much as possible every step involved in the process of reconstitution, b) a set of tools devised for identifying and measuring all forms and degrees of similarity between names and surnames, c) a technique to process cases of ambiguous links, d) a set of programs used to assess the quality of the data and the strength of the links created, [and] e) an attempt to maximize the performance of the linkage work in terms of both efficiency and accuracy. The system has been designed to support several kinds of analyses, from social history and demography to population genetics. Our paper contains a brief overview of the current state of research in the field of record linkage, an introduction to the Saguenay [Canada] population register and a description of the system itself which has been utilized successfully in the last year on the 660,000 Saguenay parish records, covering the period 1842-1971." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND ITA)