The Average Number of Children per Marriage, by Corrado Gini. Life and Times of an Honest Measure

From the works of Corrado Gini (1884-1965), here is a reconsideration of the method proposed in 1932 for calculating the average number of legitimate children per marriage. Given a somewhat cool reception by his Italian colleagues at the time, and not without polemic in the international forum as well, the method was then used for the study of fertility of marriages as a matter of course. Today it is much respected in historical demography. Once the conditions of use have been verified, it is often able to provide valuable information about the fertility of past populations, even with limited data.