Abstract
THE November issue of the Statistical Bulletin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York contains a review of the course of the marriage-rate during the War of 1914–18 in the countries immediately concerned. With the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 the marriage-rate of all the belligerent countries fell precipitously. In France, for example, the rate dropped from a level of about 8 per 1,000 during the period 1851–1913 to a minimum of 2·3 in 1915. In Germany the pre-war average rate of about 8 per 1,000 sank to 4·1 in 1915 and 1916. In Italy the rate fell to 2·7 in 1917. In England and Wales the rate, which for a long time had been about 8 per 1,000, showed a transient rise to 9·7 in 1915 and then fell to 6·9 in 1917. In the United States the minimum reached in 1918 was not far below an average of 10·4 for 1914–16, the years preceding the entrance of the United States into the war. The end of the War was followed by a prompt rebound to unusually high figures. Thus in France the rate rose from 5·5 per 1,000 in 1918 to 14·0 in 1919 and 16·0 in 1920, and similar though less pronounced rises took place in Germany and most of the other belligerent countries. Even some of the neutral countries showed a distinct reaction, which in the case of Switzerland was more marked than that of England and Wales.
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Marriage-Rate in War-time. Nature 145, 217–218 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145217c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145217c0