JENKS— ETHNIC AMALGAMATION 



unmarried children, making an average of 1.83 children per Dutch 

 half-breed family — as against 3.53 children for the Dutch pure-bred 

 family. Not only is the Dutch half-breed family much less fecund 

 than the Dutch pure-bred family, but the average for the Dutch 

 half-breed families is also noticeably lower than the expected average 

 for said families. This expected average is computed from the four- 

 teen ethnic groups composing the 181 Dutch half-breed families. The 

 expected average is 2.4 children per family, while the actual average 

 is only 1.83 children — the fact of amalgamation apparently being the 

 cause for reduced fecundity. The decreasing of fecundity in the vari- 

 ous half-breed groups is the outstanding fact of the table. 



We may note that Group 13, the "American", composed of the 

 most completely amalgamated families, has only 1.52 unmarried 

 children per family. This is the lowest fecundity of all the so-called 

 pure-bred groups, except the Scotch-Irish, in which, however, there 

 are only sixteen families, and in which the fecundity is only .02 per 

 cent less than the American. The three groups at the bottom of the 

 table, namely, Welsh, American, and Scotch-Irish, have the lowest 

 fecundity of the so-called pure-bred families. Each of the three 

 groups has its fecundity slightly increased by intermarriage with 

 other pure-bred families. This would be expected in case of the 

 American, because such half-breed families are nearer pure-bred than 

 are the amalgamated American families. Also it might be expected 

 that the groups which, pure-bred, have a relatively low fecundity, 

 would, on interbreeding with others which are mostly of higher fecun- 

 dity, have an increased fecundity in their half-breed families. How- 

 ever, even in the case of these least fecund groups, amalgamation is 

 seen to lower fecundity because each of the three half-breed groups 

 is less fecund than the expected average and the average of the 

 averages. 



Table B, entitled "Relative Fecundity of Pure-bred and Half-breed 

 Families in Sioux Falls, South Dakota," presents data on all living 

 children. The table presents, in the left half, eight different so-called 

 pure-bred groups, with a total of 246 families. The groups are 

 arranged in order of decreasing fecundity for pure-bred families. In 

 the right half are 359 half-breed families, one head of each of which 

 is of the given ethnic group while the other is of some other pure- 

 bred group. 



The same story of decreasing fecundity in the half-breed families 

 is told by the data in Table B, from the families in a small city, as 

 by those in Table A, from a city of 300,000 population. The fecun- 

 dity is less in every half-breed group, except the American. This in- 



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