Originally published in 1975, this was the first empirical study to investigate the nature of the links between family size and the social and economic condition of those in lower social classes. The largest families are often found among those who seem to be least able to afford many children. Why is this so? By comparing a sample of Aberdeen couples in an unskilled manual occupational group who had large families with those in the same and other manual occupational groups who had smaller families, Miss Askham attempted to show why differences in family size occur. Her findings indicated that those with larger families tended to have experienced throughout their lives more poverty, insecurity and deprivation than those with smaller families and that this affected their view of the world and of their own place in it. As the first survey carried out in Britain which examined in detail the relationship between poverty and fertility, this book has appeal for all those interested in the sociology or welfare of the family.
