Rural-Urban Variations In the Age of Parents At the Birth of the First Child.

A study of the age of parents at the birth of the first child is a feasible approach to the problem of relating residence differentials in fertility to rural- urban variations in the age patterns of marriage. Employing data taken from Oldahoma birth certificates, comparisons are made between open country, village, and urban populations. The rural populations begin effective fertility a year or more sooner than the urban. Age differences between parents and correlations between mothers' and fathers' ages are also found to vary according to residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]