Population Marriage Rate

POPULATION MARRIAGE RATE, according to the definition of most authors, the relationship of the annual number of marriages concluded to 1,000 of the average population of all ages. This definition is characterized by the greatest simplicity, but it is not flawless from a scientific-statistical point of view, since not all of the population is marriageable, but only a part of it that has reached a certain age and is not already married. This simple definition characterizes, so to speak, the tendency to conclude marriages in a given population; the actual height, or strength, of marriage rate requires special definitions of the number of marriages in relation to the adult population not in marriage (single and widowed men aged 20-60 years, unmarried and widowed women aged 15-50 years). G. Mayr considers it sufficient to subtract only the younger age groups (under 15 years), since the tendency to marry never completely disappears even in the oldest age. In French demography, marriage probabilities are also defined as the ratio of the number of marriages to the total number of persons who had the chance to marry during a given period. To characterize these calculations, some comparative definitions of special marriage rate (of the marriageable adult population—single men over 18 years, unmarried women from 15 years, widowed and divorced of all ages) can be given; the figures relate to the pre-war period (July 19, 1914; see Table 1). Great interest is also associated with determining the number of persons belonging to marital unions in each thousand of the population (or more precisely—of the population over 15 years); this definition of the so-called frequency of marital status is made according to census data. Special definitions of marriage rate are calculated separately for each sex. A very important element in the study of marriage rate is the determination of age-specific marriage rates. First, the marriage rate of individual age groups of the population can be established (the ratio of the number of marriages concluded at a certain age to the number of marriageable persons of the same age). Next, so-called absolute marriage age is determined—the age group to which the maximum number of marriages falls; the average marriage age is found by dividing the sum of years of all persons who married by their number; for the accuracy of this last definition, it is necessary that the age grouping be as detailed as possible. Very characteristic data are also obtained by determining the age composition of those entering marriage (the percentage content of individual ages in the total sum of marrying persons). From the data in the table below, it can be seen how sharply the population of Russia differed from Western European in the predominance of marriages concluded at the youngest ages—especially in rural areas and among women. The study of marriage rate by age of those marrying is often associated with grouping by civil status—the number of annual marriages per 1,000 individuals of a given age and family status (single, unmarried, widowed, divorced). When observing marriage rate over time, the distribution of concluded marriages by months and seasons of the year ('variability' of marriage rate) is studied; monthly and seasonal types of marriage rate vary by countries and individual localities, cities and villages, depending on living, economic and other conditions. Similarly, annual fluctuations of marriage rate and its slow fluctuations observed over a long series of years are also studied. This study is of profound interest, since the movement of marriages depends by no means on any random factors, but is closely connected with the domestic and economic life of the population and illuminates this latter. According to some demographers (G. Mayr), besides marriages representing the result of a combined decision by the bridegroom and bride, the study of individual decisions by each person is also of interest for the purposes of special research. For this purpose, for local research in some German cities, statistics of concluded marriages began to be supplemented by statistics of marriage proposals, registered on special cards (Silbergleit). Such are the methods of statistical research of population marriage rate. Analysis of statistical data on marriage rate gives interesting and important conclusions. Among researchers of the distant past, even Quetelet pointed out that 'when the cost of life's provisions noticeably increases and a poor harvest occurs, the results of such a situation can be found with great certainty in marriage and birth records.' Later researchers come to the same conclusion. After a very detailed independent analysis of the statistical material of Belgium, Germany, England and France, the Belgian statistician Canderlier comes to the conviction that everywhere fluctuations in population marriage rate are under the direct and immediate influence of the economic conditions experienced by the country. The number of marriages, in his words, 'serves as a reliable indicator of the ease or difficulty with which the population achieves the provision of means necessary for life; the number of marriages increases when this ease increases; it decreases under opposite conditions.' Observation of the movement lines of population marriage rate in European countries characterizes their economic history. For each people, the normal movement of population marriage rate is determined by the general course of its economic development. Wars, poor harvests, epidemics, industrial crises, popular movements cause a kind of catastrophe in this normal movement of marriage rate. But, when the catastrophe has passed, marriage rate restores its losses and after a corresponding period of compensation returns to its norm. This process could be observed with special clarity in the dynamics of the general population marriage rate in European countries in connection with the era of the imperialist war. In the years of the war, marriage rate decreased everywhere, even in some neutral countries; in many cases it fell to an unprecedented minimum (exception—England, where the formation of a new army from the civilian population caused an extraordinary rise in the conclusion of marital unions, since initially only single men were subject to conscription). This catastrophe of marriage rate ended with the end of the war in 1918, when the period of compensation of marriage rate began, when the delayed need began to unfold like a compressed spiral; the figures of European population marriage rate in 1919-21 exceed the usual norms of individual countries by 2-3 times. Further, they gradually equalize again, returning to the usual norms characteristic of individual states (see Table 4). Particularly indicative are the corresponding figures of marriage rate in large cities, in particular in the USSR—in Leningrad and in Moscow (ratios per 1,000 population; see Table 5).

To 7.8 8.0 10.2 8.1 7.7 8.6 10.0 10.1 8.5 7.9 7.6 7.7 7.6 7.2 5.9 5.9 5.8 5.8 6.1 6.1 6.7 6.9 7.3 6.6 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.2 - 6.2 ,6.3 6.5 6.4 6.9 7.1 7.8 5.9 7.0 6.8 6.4 6.2 6.0 5.9 5.7 7.3 7.2 6.9 6.5 7.1 7.1 7.6 8.2 8.4 8.3 7.9 8.0 8.0 7.5 - 7.7 7.8 6.8 6.7 7.5 7.4 8.6 9.6 9.2 8.7 8.0 7.8 7.4 7.4 7.3 6.9 5.7 5.0 5.7 6.0 6.7 7.9 9.0 8.4 7.7 7.6 7.3 7.1 - 8.8 11 ,8 12.9 12.9 И ,4 10.0 Table 4. Marriage Rate of the State 2 Table 5. Marriage Rate of the population in the USSR (per 1,000 inhabitants). Years | grad Moscow Moscow Province 1902-06 ... 6.0 5.4 7.9 1907-11 . . 6.3 5.9 7.4 1912-14 . . 6.3 5.7 6.8 1915-18 . . 6.9 5.2 2.3 (1915-16) 1919-21 . . 23.6 17.8 13.6 (1921) 1922-24 . . 14.1 15.0 13.5 1925 . . 13.2 13.3 10.7 1926 . . 13.6 13.0 10.4 The same process undoubtedly also takes place throughout the USSR and in its individual parts. But in the USSR, the period of compensation of M. coincides with the revolutionary upheaval in the state norms for concluding and dissolving marriages, which led to an even greater increase in the marriage rate figures in the Union. In certain periods of historical life in all states and regions, a strict dependence is observed between fluctuations in harvests and grain prices, on the one hand, and fluctuations in the marriage rate of the population, on the other; this remains as a constant phenomenon in agricultural countries; in industrial and industrial states, fluctuations in M. coincide with the development of commodity production and export and with the wave-like movement of economic crises. V. I. Pokrovsky considers it firmly established that the marriage rate is higher in years and periods of economic prosperity. Among the conditions affecting the level of local marriage rate coefficients, he assigns an important place to the productivity of agricultural labor. A strong increase in harvests in an agricultural country, almost always accompanied by a decrease in grain prices, increases M. in the same year and even more so in the following year, as well as birth rates and natural population growth. The basic material on marriages (records of civil status) by origin belongs to the same department as the material on mortality and birth rates, which has fundamental importance for sanitary-statistical research. The study of population birth rates and female fertility is illuminated by data on marriage age and family fertility. In this way, sanitary-statistical research of the family inevitably encounters definitions of the marriage rate. Finally, the dynamics of the marriage rate connects the area of sanitary research with observations of the economic life of the population.