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Annual variations are often more brutal for nuptiality than they are for other demographic phenomena. Short-term economic movements, in particular, seem to have a more direct impact. In the long run, however, nuptiality is generally considered as a much more stable factor than, say, fertility which has undergone profound changes in all industrialized countries over the past hundred years. In this article the social scientists will attempt to study these recent trends in the light of longer-term ones, by comparing nuptiality movements in four countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In this paper, they study the nuptiality of birth cohorts by calculating the proportion ever-married at age 50, and mean age at first marriage. Data are not always strictly comparable between one census and another, especially in Canada and the United States where geographical coverage has varied through time. However, the numbers involved were small. Moreover, the definition of marital status has not been changed, at least not the basic distinction between single and ever-married. Through a study of nuptiality trends for the single for about a hundred different birth cohorts, they will attempt to determine whether attitudes towards marriage have changed. But first, they must eliminate the structural effects which affect the phenomenon studied. For instance, marriage becomes more difficult for women and female nuptiality decreases when there is a scarcity of potential male partners.

IT WOULD SEEM then that the achievements of countries like Australia and New Zealand are worthy of emulation. Much constructive work, of course, is being done in the United States. For instance, the College of Agriculture at the University of Wyoming has succeeded in adding 3 pounds to the weight of the fleece during the past five to ten years by instructing Wyoming sheepmen how to breed large, sturdy sheep that bear low-shrinkage, high-quality wool. The government also is expanding its research in breeding and marketing practices; but unfortunately, the government seems to have the unhappy faculty of nullifying its constructive efforts by destructive activities. For example, long and short hedging in wool and wool top futures against price uncertainties is a legitimate instrument that wool growers, wool dealers and manufacturers can use to protect themselves from financial loss, but this was made more or less difficult in 1946 by the ceiling prices and the actions of the CCC. But if wool growing is to survive in this country, it must retain its traditional characteristic of freedom, for from the very beginning of time, the pastoral life has always been the freest element in any country's economy. Thus the sheep farmers must be taught to help themselves, as they must learn more about their business and give the market what it wants. But they cannot gain this knowledge by crouching behind trade barriers and leaning on subsidies, for in the last analysis, competition is the only real educator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historic trend of rural and urban fertility in the South Island of New Zealand conforms closely to the experience over time of other world areas of similar socio-economic evolution, in particular Australia, the United States, and Western Europe. In the period from 1881 to 1936 a widespread decline occurred in both rural and urban fertility. There was a subsequent resurgence lasting to 1951 but thereafter, especially in the 1960's, a new phase of decline emerged. Meanwhile, an appreciable narrowing of rural-urban, inter-rural, and inter-urban fertility differences has taken place. Within the larger metropolitan centers, however, pronounced suburban variations are evident, a major contrast existing between the downtown pattern of low fertility and the outlying residential districts of high fertility. Both long term and recent shifts have been causatively linked with changing cultural attitudes deriving from the emergence of an overwhelmingly urban-dwelling society in place of the rural agricultural, pioneer society still predominant in 1881. Fertility differences at the regional and local level are explained by reference to a wide range of cultural variables, chiefly socio-economie status, religion, marital status, and other sociological circumstances peculiar to urban as distinct from rural ways of living.