In the population of 242,633 draftees examined in the Copenhagen area for the period 1956–77, 1143 were extremely overweight. Compared to 2123 controls, selected at random from the remaining draftee population, the obese had a lower educational attainment, even at each level of intelligence test score. Conversely, at each educational level, the obese did not differ from the controls in intelligence test score. When taking into account, by regression analysis, both intelligence test score and parental social class, the chance for the obese of exceeding the educational level of minimum years of schooling followed by elementary trade training increased from 37% to only 52% of that for the controls. The results suggest that obesity, irrespective of social origin, is associated with poor educational attainment which may be responsible for the cognitive deficiency manifested in lower intelligence test scores.

In two groups of people, 98 couples in which the husband was a military serviceman and 63 couples of Jewish ancestry living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, age at marriage, age at time of survey, fifteen anthropometric variables, and hair and eye colour were studied. Proper adjustments of the data were made taking into consideration duration of cohabitation, aging and secular effects, and skewness in the distributions. There are some differences between the two groups in age at marriage, but in both there is a tendency for those currently older to have married later in life. The correlation coefficients between spouses are with very few exceptions positive, with no indication of preferences for opposites. Size and factors related to body build are the most readily detectable agents in the assortative mating occurring in this population, but in the military group relative lengths of leg and trunk, rather than stature itself, are important in conditioning mate choice.

The genetic structure and its recent evolution in a small isolated village in the French Pyrenees, Arthez-d'Asson, have been characterized by calculating the probabilities of origin of genes and inbreeding values at every generation since the 17th century.

Arthez-d'Asson appears to be one of the most inbred populations in France, with an inbreeding coefficient of approximately 0·5%. This is due first to genetical and cultural isolation, and secondly to migration out of the village towards towns at the turn of the century. The valley of Ouzom, in which Arthez-d'Asson lies, constitutes a hierarchical population and some cultural and genetical turnover is drawing back to the valley genes which have been absent for some generations.

Data from the 1971 Census records included in the OPCS Longitudinal Study were used to examine the relationship between geographic mobility and marriage termination and remarriage. Remarried women had high rates of mobility and there seemed to be a clear ‘excess’ of moves made around the time of remarriage, shortly after the end of the first marriage. There was a suggestion too of a peak in movements following widowhood but no indication of excess movement at the time of de jure divorce. The data were not adequate to allow examination of moves made at the the time of separation. Additional data from linked 1971–81 Census information showed that changes of marital status were strongly associated with changes of tenure. Other characteristics of divorced, widowed and remarried women were also examined to see how they might affect their patterns of geographic movement.

Data on the fertility of mothers and daughters in 10,931 mother–daughter pairs were obtained from family reconstitution studies based on English parish registers between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. These data indicate that there is no association between the fecundity of daughters and that of their mothers.

The trends of intermarriage, and the attitude to it, of Koreans in Japan were examined. About 47% of total marriages of Koreans during the period 1965–79 comprised a husband and wife of different nationality. The proportion of Korean–Japanese marriages was higher than that of Korean–Korean marriages in recent years. Attitudes of Koreans in Japan are likely to favour intermarriage with Japanese. The results suggest that mixed marriages of Koreans and Japanese will continue to increase and may influence the future fertility of Koreans in Japan.

Using retrospective data from Korea, multi-variate log-linear analyses indicate that the sex of a child influences the probability of it being breast-fed. Even for women with a living son, there are greater than average odds that they will not breast-feed an infant girl. The sex of the child did not, however, influence the number of months he/she was breast-fed.

This study employs multiple classification and regression techniques to determine the influence of marital, sociodemographic and selected intermediate variables on duration of breast-feeding and post-partum sexual abstinence among a sample of 300 Yoruba women of western Nigeria. Only education and place of residence appeared to be significantly related to the post-partum variables. Breast-feeding was shown to exert a significant positive effect on abstinence. The effect of contraception on the post-partum variables appeared to be a function of socioeconomic status.

Reductions in the duration of the post-partum variables due to relative affluence can result in increases in fertility. Planners may do well to encourage women to go back to the use of these traditional child spacing practices in the absence of large scale and effective use of contraceptives.

Two hundred and fifty-five married women about to have a tubal ligation and 167 women whose husbands were about to have a vasectomy were interviewed about their decisions. The data were analysed to determine the factors with which pre-surgical ambivalence about the decision was associated.

Three independent factors were indicated: a substantive factor related to childbearing motivations, attitudes, and beliefs; a processual factor related to the decision-making process; and a contextual factor relating to situational pressures for and against the decision.

This paper examines the determinants of infant and child mortality variations in four near east countries using data from WFS surveys. The analysis considers biological correlates of mortality—mother's age, birth order, birth interval, and previous infant loss—and several social factors—mother's and father's education, mother's residence, father's occupation, and mother's work experience since marriage. A multivariate analysis using a logistic regression model is carried out to obtain the net effect of each factor on mortality. Separate models are constructed for infant mortality and childhood mortality and for each country.

The four countries show large variations in mortality, but this is persistently higher in female than male children. All four demographic characteristics affect mortality significantly, especially the length of the preceding birth interval. Among the socioeconomic variables, only rural–urban residence is influential.

In a prospective study of 2324 women in Matlab, Bangladesh, the occurrence of primary and secondary sterility by age groups was examined. The results were related to the nutritional status of the women, as assessed by measurements of height, weight, arm circumference and ponderal index. There is evidence that nutritional status is an important factor in estimated age at sterility, with thinner women experiencing a slightly earlier menopause.