M. L. March. Sociology and Eugenics.211
cant. Yet one may ask whether the differences are not due to inequalities
in the duration of the marriages, because workmen usually marry earlier
than employes or employers.
Let us, therefore, consider those marriages which had lasted for 25
years and more. Here, as previously, the order is the same, though the
figures are slightly different : the number of children per 100 families is 303
for employés, 360 for employers, and 409 for workmen.
Before entering into further details concerning the classes mentioned
above, we will compare these classes with others outside the strictly occupa
tional categories. One of the new classes comprises men of private means,
and heads of families returned as “ retired,” “without profession,” etc.
For these last, at the age of 60-64 years, and still only considering married
men, the number of children is 292 per 100 families, that is to say, a lower
figure than shown by the employers, and even lower than that of the
employes. In the case of men of private means, it is true that the average
number of children per 100 families continues to increase with the age, and
reaches 332 when the head of the family has passed 70 years, whereas
it does not exceed 310 for employés, and 360 for employers. That children
who' die at an early age are left out in filling in the papers is, without doubt,
more common with workmen than with employés, or, more particularly, with
men who have retired or who have private means. Further, the latter class
comprises a large number of persons of advanced age who would formerly
have belonged either to the employers or to the employés, and have lived a
long while and had a large family.
From these results we conclude that, at the most productive period of
married life, fecundity is a little less among persons with private means or
without a profession than among the aggregate of agricultural, industrial, or
commercial employers and members of the liberal professions.
In a second class are included fishermen and sailors in the merchant
service, whose fecundity is particularly high, namely 486 children per 100
families for men aged 60-65. Of all the classes considered up till now
this is the most productive.
Finally, a third class, whose social value is certainly less than the
preceding ones, comprises the inhabitants of hospitals, asylums, prisons, and
vagabonds ; all those who, under one heading or another, constitute a more
or less high charge on society, although some of them at one time or another
have done useful work. In this class one finds again a peculiarity already
noted among men who have retired, live on private means, or are without a
profession, namely, that productiveness does not reach its maximum at 60-65
years. Among married men there are at this age 316 children per 100
families ; at 65-70 years, 334; and at more than 70, 353.
The hospital (or workhouse hospitalisé) class includes, like the man of
private means, some individuals who, during the normal part of their lives,
belonged to other classes. Probably the greater number of the latter class
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