1901 1911 1921 1931 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011 Percentage
55 LIVE BIRTHS 1901 1911 1221 1231 1251 ¿261 1266 1222
Illegitimate as percentage of all live births 4.2 4.7 4.9 4.8
4.8
5.7
7.6 8.1 8.0 8.2 Percentage of legitimate live births to women married once only occuring within 8 months of marriage: Mother aged Under 20 55-0 56-5 54-9 58.5 57-856.9
20 - 24 12.2 10.5 10.7 12.1 11.5 10.4The above rates are subject to small revisions when more accurate population figures become available.
Source: Social Trends, 1972.
TABLE 33 (Ctd.)
In line with the trend to earlier marriages, the practice of early child bearing has tended to rise in the younger female age groups. Pew women, today, have more children beyond the age of 30. As indicated in the above table, peak fertility rates are now located in the 20 - 24 age group, whereas throughout the sixties they were to be found mainly among the
25
- 29 year olds. In practical terms, all this means is that, presently, the average British woman has her child bearing function completed by the age of 30 and has had the time spent in pregnancy and lactation reduced to four years as opposed to fifteen years a century ago.f ) Family Size
As regards family sizes, the trend is positively towards smaller families. This is not a characteristic peculiar to British society but one which is
prevailing in most highly industrialised countries. The causes can be traced back to the decline of the family as a unit of production, the improvement in medical care for young babies and children, the economic constraints of modern life on large ft. ±xies, and the liberal use of contraceptive methods.
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As a result, it is estimated that the completed family size for marriages contracted in the late 1950’s and early
1960
’s will reach an average of about 2.4 children. It is difficult to give accurate estimates of the number of children who will be born out of recently married couples but various surveys show that most desire no more than two or three children.(2) Education
Although there is no formal discriminât ion against girls and, at least superficially, there seems to be equal opportunities for both sexes,
education in the U.K. is strongly biased in favour of men.
Evidence of this may be seen in the many discriminatory practices directed, overtly or covertly, against the improvement of educational stan dards for girls and the widening of their occupational horizons. Too often, the problem of discrimination is reinforced by the deep-rooted attitudes among parents, teachers and girls themselves, that education is in some sense less essential for girls than for boys. So much so, that, where parents have to make a choice between giving a formal education to a son and/or to a daughter, more often than not the preference goes to the son;
so much so that the rate of decrease of single-sex schools in England and Wales is much slower than it really need be because of substantial parental
opposition to co-education. In 1971, according to the Department of Education and Science, over one-third of the
3.9
million pupils were still attending single-sex schools, many of these in the private sector.The development of comprehensive education may accelerate the process of ensuring equality of educational opportunities for girls, provided, however, the present practice of differentiating between curricula for boys and
curricula for girls is abandoned. a) Cultural Bias
It is widely asserted that girls are more attracted to arts subjects than to the sciences and other quantitative subjects. Although this may be true in many cases, the phenomenon is not necessarily a reflection of girls’ innate inability to cope with technological subjects. Large attend ance in arts classes is probably the result of ignorance as to the variety
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of career opportunities which are in fact open to girls, and of out-dated beliefs that art subjects are girls* traditional preserves. Lack of
popularity for science subjects is more likely due to pressure ’from above' and shortage of facilities rather than an inherent dislike of the subjects by girls.
A survey by the Science Masters' Association^, published in 1959» showed that 49$ of all secondary modern girls’ schools had all or part of their science teaching in rooms without proper facilities while 66$
2
of these same schools had inadequate equipment. Another study also showed that among grammar school girls taking ’0 ’ levels, mathematics was the most preferred subject with other sciences, English language and modern languages the runners up.
Yet the fact remains that in 1971:
- 11$ more boys took an examination in mathematics at CSE level , while 45$ niore boys took GCE ’O ’ level examinations in Science and/or other technical subjects.
- Some 60,000 boys studied math/science subjects at 'A' level as against 20,000 girls: a ratio of 3 : 1.
b ) Leaving Age
On the whole, girls perform better at junior level and win proportionally more grammar school places. Problems for girls begin at the second school level and lead more girls than boys to leave at the minimum school leaving age^. In 1971, 44*1$ left at this age, compared with 43.4$ of boys. As will be noted from the table below, this differential has changed very little since
1967
.1 Referred to in ’Equality for Women’. M. Rendei - Fabian Research Series
268
, I968
.2 Veronica Roberts in ’A Career for Women in Industry’. Ed. Nancy Seear, 1964.
3 CSE = Certificate of Secondary Education. GCE = General Certificate of Education. ’0* level = Ordinary level. ’A* level = Advanced level. 4 School leaving age was raised from 15 to 16 in 1973.
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PERCENTAGE OF PUPILS STAYING OF