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This paper reports on an interview study of contraceptive practice among a representative sample of 1,022 white married women in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was found that most of the couples have used contraception at some time during their married life, the highest use being among fecund couples. A high proportion of couples used contraceptives before their first pregnancy, and a very small proportion of fecund women never use any form of contraception at all during their married lives.

This paper analyzes regional data on human fertility from the 1940 Census of Peru. It is noted that the 1940 Census discloses marked fertility differentials between urban and rural areas which are accounted for in terms of a lower incidence of motherhood in urban areas. Further analysis by department shows that social and economic characteristics are often related in one way to the incidence of motherhood and in the opposite way to the fertility of mothers. The hypothesis is advanced that differential patterns of mating may account for variations, and that increasing urbanization and cultural integration of Indian-speaking Peruvians may produce increases in fertility in the short run.

In this paper, the effect of declining mortality upon marital status distributions and through them upon birth rates and other related measures are studied while holding other factors constant. This was done by considering a stable population with a gross reproduction rate of 3 and expectation of life at birth 30 years and comparing it with another stable population with expectation of life at birth 50 years and the same marital fertility rates. The use of stable population models was found convenient because they show the effects of different levels of fertility and mortality, without the disturbance arising from abnormalities in the age distributions.

This paper deals with certain problems in fertility analysis in the West Indies that has their origin in two characteristics of the populations involved: the diversity of family forms and the imbalance between the sexes. Considerations of the main features of these family types, in terms of a fourfold classification as well as in terms of the threefold classification adopted at recent censuses, single, common law and married, show that many techniques relied on in the study of fertility among European populations are inapplicable to West Indian populations. The limited data available permit only rough estimates of the rates of formation of different types of unions: but these emphasize that formal marriage usually takes place late in the childbearing period, generally after the couple has had one or more children, that the formation of keeper unions begins considerably earlier and that the common law type is a transitional state between the looser keeper union and the state of formal marriage. There seems to be no chance of studying fertility differentials among the several family types in terms of reproduction rates.

This paper completes the account of Family Allowance Policy in France. This section deals with developments after the war, and gives an account of the changes and developments that were made necessary in the population programme as a result of post-war conditions. An attempt is made to evaluate the significance of the programme in relation to the recent rise in French fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the demographic effects of a contraceptive program. In 1965 Byung Moo Lee and J. Isbister published a paper in which they attempted to calculate effects of a contraceptive program from data on the numbers and ages of acceptors, dates of acceptance and the age-specific fertility schedule of the population. This article was of a preliminary nature and does not stand up well to critical attention. The method assumed that in the absence of the program, the fertility of women who did become acceptors would have been 20% higher than the marital fertility rate applicable to them at the age when they might next he expected to give birth. Thus accepting women aged 20 were assumed to have a potential fertility rate in the first year of use, 1.2 times that of women aged 21 and so on. . Indeed, where past fertility is assessed over the preceding three or five years, there are sound mathematical reasons may be converse may be true, and both past and future fertility differentials may prove illusory.

The paper deals only with the first two of these, which, unlike duration of pregnancy, present unusual problems of estimation. The literature of the past few years contains a number of attempts to deduce values for these determinants from observational data, that is, from observed series of birth intervals, but it is one of the more frustrating aspects of such demographic analyses that the significance of observations often depends as much upon the way in which the data were collected as on the values themselves. Sets of birth intervals can be obtained in a quite remarkable variety of ways and analyzed with correspondingly varied virtuosity. The fecundabilities calculated in various tables are considerably lower than those, which have been derived from other studies. This is largely because of the inclusion in the series of the full range of women in the population; the correction of the harmonic effect also leads to a lower value. A remarkable feature of this series is that some 4% of all intervals were stated as being longer than six years. Intervals of this length are, of course, very much rarer in studies confined to women of high attained parity.

In this paper, a statistical analysis is made of the social and economic characteristics associated with the decline of marital fertility in Spain. Variables examined on a provincial basis are marriage patterns, marital fertility, and indices of industrialization, urbanization, and literacy. Cross-section and time-series analyses of the data do not indicate a strong association between fertility and indicators of development. Rural-urban differentials in marital fertility are small when examined by province.

Family planning programmes, whether intentionally or not, do by their nature affect the birth rates of populations served. Since the birth rate in the absence of the programmes is not known, it is not possible to determine with certainty the dimensions of their fertility effects. This article presents preliminary results of a continuing study of pre- and post-acceptance natality rates among all new acceptors in the national family planning programme of Malaysia during 1967-1969. To explain the observed results, use has been made of auxiliary data sources. Differences in the fertility of acceptors compared with the general female population are discussed, particularly in terms of differences between these two groups in their age and racial composition. Amongst acceptors, differences in fertility patterns associated with different contraceptive methods accepted are discussed. The limitations inherent in a fertility study covering only three years are recognized, as is the need for continuation and further refinement of the present study.

The fertility effects of legal shifts occurring in Romania in 1966 are examined as a large, naturally-occurring `experiment' on the impact of laws on fertility behaviour: In all likelihood, the effects of the Romanian policies represent the largest short-term increase in fertility ever experienced by a large human population. All fertility indicators nearly doubled in the space of one year. The greatest relative increases occurred to women aged 30-34, 35-39, and 40-44 of parities 2 and 3. There is clear evidence, however, of an accelerating decline in fertility since 1967. The sharp fluctuations in age-cohort size resulting from the drastic increase and subsequent decrease in fertility are likely to lead to important and difficult problems of accommodation as these cohorts move through the age span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of fertility in any given society involves the study of the family and its institutional characteristics. Reproduction is one of the primary functions of the family, and it is through this that the society maintains itself against the hazards of mortality. This article examines fertility in relation to the age at return marriage using the data from a study in a rural area in India. The author discusses how the interval from return marriage to first birth is usually long among Indian women and explores the factors that contribute to the low incidence of childlessness in the country.

Of the two islands of Zanzibar and Pemba which together comprise Zanzibar Protectorate, the rate of population growth has been appreciably higher in Pemba than in Zanzibar. This article aims to examine the differing fertility level among the Afro-Arab population in Zanzibar Island and especially in Zanzbar town. It seeks to report that the low fertility of the Afro-Arabs in Zanzibar Town is attributable in part to a high proportion of single, widowed and divorced women in the town and to deliberate family limitation among certain sections of the urban population.

The article presents information on the fertility trends of the Asian population. According to the author, the rapid growth of the populations of Asian countries has become a matter of such general concern that considerable attention has been focused on their fertility trends. The dramatic fall in the Japanese birth rate since the end of the Second World War has raised the question whether other Asian countries may not likewise experience rapid declines in fertility. The predictions of future trends in Indian fertility have tended to be based, not on the figures of birth registration, but on smaller studies of differential fertility, in order to answer the question of how far such factors as increase in urbanization, literacy, or a general rise in the level of living might bring about a decline in fertility. But once again the conclusions reached by students of Indian demography have been generally pessimistic. In many cases the fertilities of emigrant communities appear to be similar to, if not greater than, that of India herself. In Malaya, where the 1947 census revealed a total Indian population of some 610,000, calculations based on the 1947 and 1948 figures of birth registration and the 1947 census indicated that the fertility of Indian women currently living in Malaya was at least as high as, if not higher that of the Chinese.

The article gives an account is given of the Indian population of East Africa. An indication of its fertility, age structure and outlook for future development of this population is also discussed. For the purpose of this study, British East Africa has been defined as including the territories of Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda but excluding the Protectorate of Zanzibar. The largest community numerically in this region is Indian. The influx of Indians began with the building of the Uganda Railway which was started in 1896. They were recruited as labourers for the construction of the railway, and after the work had been completed they were permitted to remain. They spread throughout the territories, entering mainly wholesale and retail trade. With the gradual development of the territories, the Indian community increased both from natural causes and from immigration. The importance of the latter can be easily recognized from the figure of 50% of the Indian population recorded in the 1948 population census as born outside the East African territories. The table given in the article shows the distribution of the Indian population among the territories. In 1948, 54% of the Indian population were resident in Kenya, Tanganyika ranking second with 26 %.

Both male and female nuptiality conditions can be calculated from any given population. Generally these conditions will be inconsistent in the sense that if applied continuously with given mortality and fertility conditions they would produce different sets of marriages, both in total numbers and in age distribution of bridegrooms and brides. It is shown that, given, say, male nuptiality, female nuptiality conditions consistent in the sense that both male and female conditions could hold in a stable population can be deduced. These consistent conditions depend on the ultimately stable rate of growth of the population. The mathematical formulae for the relations connecting various characteristics of the two consistent sets. of nuptiality conditions are worked out (e.g. net probability of marrying, mean ages at marriage, marriage-rates at particular ages, etc.), the magnitudes of the parameters in the relations estimated and the relations are translated into numerical terms, showing the effects of changes in the level of the stable rate of growth on the Consistent nuptiality conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]