Socio-economic policy planning and monitoring requires accurate data on births, deaths and population, in order to plan effectively for provision of health, education, employment and social security services. This publication contains detailed information on the compilation of demographic data using a range of complementary methods which can be combined to suit national conditions. Topics covered include: planning collection of fertility and mortality data; fieldwork, data processing and archiving; evaluation, estimation and dissemination; civil registration records, censuses and surveys as data sources.

This volume is an important study in demographic history. It draws on the individual returns from the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses of England and Wales, to which Garrett, Reid, Schürer and Szreter were permitted access ahead of scheduled release dates. Using the responses of the inhabitants of thirteen communities to the special questions included in the 1911 'fertility' census, they consider the interactions between the social, economic and physical environments in which people lived and their family-building experience and behaviour. Techniques and approaches based in demography, history and geography enable the authors to re-examine the declines in infant mortality and marital fertility which occurred at the turn of the twentieth century. Comparisons are drawn within and between white-collar, agricultural and industrial communities, and the analyses, conducted at both local and national level, lead to conclusions which challenge both contemporary and current orthodoxies.

This book looks at the different ways in which governments support families.