Can Indirect Estimation Methods and the Medical Officer of Health Reports 'Correct' Distorted Infant Mortality Rates Reported by the Registrar General? The Case of London, 1896–1911

The Registrar General's Returns are an integral source for historical demographers. Concerns have been raised, however, over the geographical accuracy of their pre-1911 mortality figures when institutional deaths were not redistributed to place of residence. This paper determines the extent of the distortions caused by institutional mortality in the context of aggregate infant mortality rates for London's registration sub-districts. The potential of two alternative methods to 'correct' these distortions is then assessed. The first method uses indirect estimation techniques based on data from the 1911 Fertility Census, and the second exploits the rich detail available from the Medical Officer of Health reports. Through narrowing the focus to seven London registration sub-districts over the years 1896–1911, it is shown that both suggested alternative methods remove the institutional mortality biases found in the Registrar General's figures, yet they come with their own limitations.

Mater semper (in)certus est: A South African perspective on McConnell v Registrar General for England and Wales

Two recent decisions by English courts have established that the man who gave birth to his child should be registered as the ‘mother’ of that child. The courts found that, despite the fact that the Gender Recognition Act provides that a person who had changed sex and received ‘a full gender recognition certificate’ is considered ‘for all purposes’ to be a person of ‘the acquired gender’, this person still has to be registered on his child’s birth certificate as belonging to the opposite sex. This article describes and evaluates the reasons for these decisions, and compares the English position to those of a number of jurisdictions, including that of South Africa. It argues that the legal context in this country provides for a more pragmatic and equitable approach to the rights of both trans parents and their children.

Levels of Workforce Structure in Ahirwal Region of Haryana: A Spatio-Temporal Analysis

The present study discusses the levels of workforce structure in Ahirwal region, which is a socio-cultural region laying in southern Haryana. For the study of workforce structure of this region, a composite index has been constructed with the help of seven indicators. The data related to workforce indicators have been collected from Census of India, Office of the Registrar General of India, for the period 1991, 2001 and 2011. The analysis brings out that the level of workforce development in Ahirwal region was not different from that of rest of state in 1991. But this region surged ahead of the rest of state average in 2001. By 2011 Ahirwal region was far ahead of the rest of state in terms of workforce development. However, there has been a significant interdistrict difference in this regard in Ahirwal region. Gurugram district has been quite ahead of Rewari and Mahendragarh districts in terms of workforce development.

Sectarianism in the Scottish Labour Market; what the 2011 Census Shows

As disadvantage can have causes other than discrimination, its presence cannot prove discrimination. However, the absence of patterns of disadvantage in large data sets would be very strong evidence against the presence of sectarian discrimination. In this paper we analyse data on religion, social class, education, gender and region from the 2011 Scottish census. Against those who argue that sectarianism is endemic in the west of Scotland, we find no sectarian association between religion and social class among people at the peak age of their labour market involvement. The class profiles of people in the Other Religion categories are unusual but the profile for Catholics is pretty much the same as for Other Christians. That this analysis involves 487,694 people gives us confidence that the results are robust. Hence we conclude there is no evidence that the Scottish labour market is characterised by sectarian discrimination. We would like to acknowledge the assistance of the staff of the office of the Registrar General for Scotland who kindly provided us with the census data.

Suicide in Ireland in the 19th century

IntroductionThis paper is an attempt to determine the extent and characteristics of suicide in 19th-century Ireland and the proportion of these that occurred in asylums.MethodsThe procedures used in this presentation involve analysis of data from the 1841 and 1851 Censuses of Ireland and the Reports of the Registrar-General of Ireland from 1864 to 1899 and the Annual Reports of the Inspectors of Lunacy, 1850 to 1899.ResultsReported suicides had relatively low rates in the 19th century, ranging from 0.9 to 3.3 per 100 000 per year. The proportion of these suicides that occurred in asylums was low at ~4%.ConclusionsThe reporting of suicide as a cause of death was relatively rare in the first-half of the 19th century in Ireland, but increased in frequency progressively throughout the second-half of that century. The reported numbers are likely to have minimised the real rates because of under-reporting.