Shirley-Anne Hensch wrote:
>
> In my developmental psychology class this afternoon I was giving a number
> of examples of different types of correlation (strength and direction) and
> I gave level of education and number of children as an example of a
> negative correlation. I "know" that I have read a number of times that
> individuals with higher levels of education tend to have smaller families
> (and vice versa) but one of the students in my class asked if I could
> provide a reference. I didn't have a reference off the top of my head, and
> I haven't been able to locate anything dealing with this specific
> relationship in the sources I have searched so far. Do any TIPSters have a
> reference that supports this correlation?
I believe the "correlation" is very non-linear. According to Lerner, I.M. &
Libby, W.J. _Heredity Evolution and Society_ (second ed. 1976), as
occupational status rises, family size drops, then increases (we have to
assume education and occupational status are highly correlated). It's the
people in the middle classes that have lower number of children. Further, with
IQ (also correlated with education), family sizes are low in the retarded
range, above average for the 70 - 90 people, lower again for the 90 - 115
people, and rises up considerably past an IQ of 115. So, again it's the
"middle class" who are not reproducing as much. Unfortunately, these authors
present this data (one table, one graph) as the composite from several other
sources which they do provide specific references to .. or I could not easily
find). If what they report is true, however, you get a misleading view of the
reproductive rates because there are more people in the middle, and fewer in
the tails. If you plotted the absolute number of offspring from different
education/SES/IQ categories, the middle classes _may_ produce more offspring
simply because there are more people in the middle to start with. Sorry I
couldn't locate the original reference(s) better.
--
* John W. Kulig, Department of Psychology ************************
* Plymouth State College Plymouth NH 03264 *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig *
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* "Eat bread and salt and speak the truth" Russian proverb *
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