AND FECUNDITY OF WOMEN ACCORDING TO AGE. 



483 



But a more interesting and valuable comparison may be made by taking the same 

 number of 15 years before and after the middle of child-bearing life, a total period 

 of 30 years, which includes the immense majority of child-bearing women. Doing 

 so, we find that of 24,252 wives under 30 years of age, 9152 bore living children, 

 and that of 36,956 wives of ages from 30 to 44 inclusive, 7138 bore living chil- 

 dren. Had the elder women been as prolific as the younger, they would have pro- 

 duced 13,946 children, instead of 7138 ; that is, the fecundity of the younger 

 women was almost double that of the older. * 



The table given in this chapter has been prepared (see footnote) so as to give 

 the actual amounts. I found it possible to do this with a near approach to exact- 

 ness, and it is evident that in this way the results derived are not only compara- 

 tive statements, with only relative value, but also statements of actual values. 

 From the data now given I conclude — 



1. That the fecundity of the mass of wives in our population is greatest at the 

 commencement of the child-bearing period of life, and after that epoch gradually 

 diminishes. 



2. That the fecundity of the whole wives in our population included within 

 the child-bearing period of life, is, before 30 years of age is reached, more than 

 twice as great as it is after that period. 



3. That the fecundity of the wives in our population declines with great 

 rapidity after the age of 40 is reached. 



Some of these conclusions may be stated, with the actual numerical results, 

 as follows : — While of all the wives living in Edinburgh and Glasgow between 

 the ages of 15 and 45, one in 3-8 or 26-3 per cent, bore a living child ; of those 



* The data at my disposal enable me to give the figures for each year of age up to 20. But 

 the numbers are so small, that little value can be placed on the results drawn from them. They 

 seem to me to indicate that the fecundity of the mass of married women is probably highest 

 shortly after the age of 20 is reached. For although the low fecundity of one in 2-57 at twenty 

 years of age, is absorbed in Table VII. in the period from 20 to 24, yet this latter period shows, on 

 the whole, the higher fecundity of 2"4. 



TABLE VIII.— Showing the Comparative Fecundity of Wives at Ages op 16, 17, 

 18, 19, AND 20, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, in 1855, 



Ages, 



16 



17 



18 



19 



20 



Wives, 



13 



55 



232 



455 



1043 



Wives-Mothers, ....... 



4 



28 



116 



228 



405 



Proportion of latter to former is 1 in 



325 



1-96 



2-00 



1-99 



2-57 



Percentage, 



30-77 



50-91 



5000 



50-11 



38-83 



VOL, XXIII. PAKT III. 



6 p 



