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The Nuptiality Problem with Special Reference to Canadian Marriage Statistics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Enid Charles
Enid Charles*
Affiliation:
Ottawa
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Extract

Measurement of changes of marriage frequency involves peculiar difficulties. To some extent the trend of crude birth and death rates reflects the trend of more refined indexes. A corresponding statement is not even approximately true of crude marriage rates. The crude rate may be either rising or falling, while the true rate remains constant, and vice versa. Though this fact emphasizes the need for accurate analysis, comparatively few computations of true marriage rates exist. One reason for this is probably that the marriage rate has fluctuated widely in the past from year to year in response to economic changes, without showing any very definite secular trend. So the relation between marriage frequency and reproduction rates has not seemed to be highly significant. However, the position is now changing. On the one hand, marriage is less inevitably followed by reproduction. On the other hand, most marriages are still followed by first births, and first births form an ever-increasing proportion of all births. Hence fluctuation in marriage rates is reflected to an increasing degree in fertility rates.

It is now a generally accepted view that the best method of obtaining true marriage rates is to draw up nuptiality tables in accordance with the principle on which life tables are constructed. The true marriage rate is then given by the proportion of women who marry at least once out of a thousand girls alive at 15 years of age (gross nuptiality), or out of a thousand new-born girls (net nuptiality). The present paper presents nuptiality tables for Canada and each of the nine provinces for 1930-2, and for Saskatchewan for 1926 and 1936. It is hoped that similar tables will be calculated for more recent years, when the data become available.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , August 1941 , pp. 447 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1941

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Footnotes

*

The present study is part of a research programme financed by the Carnegie Corporation and sponsored by the Canadian Council for Social Research. The author is greatly indebted to Dr. Coats and the staff of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for their co-operation and for research facilities provided.

References

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