Katharine Betts

Ex-nuptially Conceived Births: a Note on Measurement

This report explores possible measures of exnuptial fertility that will control for changes in population size and composition but introduce no new extraneous variables. A measure is selected which expresses exnuptial fertility as a rate/1000 unmarried women by age. However data on numbers of unmarried women by age are only available for census years and it is assumed that all unmarried women are sexually active and at risk of pregnancy. Australian census data is presented on numbers of unmarried (never married widowed and divorced) women aged 15-44 on exnuptial confinements and bridal confinements (confinements within the first 7 months of marriage) by age of mother and on exnuptial and bridal births as a rate/1000 unmarried women by age. From the raw data it is evident that: 1) the numbers of girls aged 15-19 are far more numerous than older age categories and 2) exnuptial and bridal fertility of teenagers is higher than for other age categories but there has been a continuing decline throughout the 1970s in exnuptially conceived births to teenage mothers. Conversion of the raw data into the rate/1000 unmarried women shows that actually teenagers have very low exnuptial birth rates lower than all other age groups except the 40-44 group. Furthermore although the exnuptial and bridal birth rates rose during the 1960s all rates for all age groups fell sharply during the early 70s. The data reveals differences in the distribution of exnuptial and bridal births by age. Unmarried women over 25 years of age tend to have exnuptial births while younger women tend to legitimize exnuptial pregnancies by marriage. Explanations suggested for the differential decline in the exnuptial and bridal fertility rates include increasing social acceptance of single motherhood stability of relationships the structure of availability of birth control and variations in family planning resources with social class.

Measuring Fertility: Purposes and Problems- a Reply To Carmichael

Betts, K. 1981. ’Ex-nuptially Conceived Births: A Note on Measurement’, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 17, 3 53-56. Carmichael, G.A. ’Aspects of Ex-nuptiality in New Zealand: Toward a Social Demography of Marriage and the Family Since the Second World War’(forthcoming. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Demography, The Australian National University). Kumar, J. 1969. Demographic Analysis of Data on Illegitimate Births’, Social Biology, 16: 92-108. Ruzicka, L.T. 1975. ’Non-marital Pregnancies in Australia Since 1947’, Journal of Biosocial Science, 7, 2: 113-132.

The Legitimacy of a 'Bridal' Birth Rate—A Further Reply to Carmichael

Dr Carmichael has devoted considerable professional attention to a very modest paper, ’Ex-nuptially Conceived Births: A Note on Measurement’, that I wrote for ANZJS some two years ago. His previous objections centred around two points, the illegitimacy of a ’bridal’ birth rate (births within sevenmonths of marriage per 1,000 unmarried women) and possible sources of bias in an ex-nuptial birth rate. To these he has now added a third. I have unfairly attempted to shift the emphasis of the debate from a discussion about measurement to a discussion about the purpose of doing social research. To take the last point first: my main aim in writing the paper, which I stated at the time and re-emphasised subsequently, was to help clarify a rather confused public impression about ’rises’ in ex-nuptial fertility, particularly ’rises’ in teenage ex-nuptial fertility. I wished to