Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Multivariate Analysis 657
it is highly significant. Rural informants with less than an eighth-grade education
are more likely than urban informants with less than an eighth-grade education
to have more than three children (65% versus 35%). Among rural informants,
in fact, level of education has little or no effect on family size (70% of
those with higher education have large families versus 65% of those with
lower education).
Among urban informants, education is strongly associated with family size.
More-educated urban informants are more likely than less-educated informants
to have more than three children, according to these data. This throws
new light on the subject, and begs to be explained. We know that higher education
without small families does not produce an increase in economic status
for these poor migrants. We know, too, that most people, whether urban or
rural, keep having large families, although large families are less prevalent
among urbanites than among rural residents (132 out of 250 versus 167 out of
250).
To understand this case still further, consider table 21.13, which cross-tabulates
family size by wealth, controlling for both education and residence. This
TABLE 21.13
Family Size by Wealth, Controlling for Education and Residence
Rural
Urban
8th grade 8th grade 8th grade 8th grade
Not Not Row Not Not Row
Poor poor Poor poor totals Poor poor Poor poor totals
3 children 34 36 20 77 167 20 80 10 22 132
3 children 16 14 14 39 83 43 16 18 41 118
Column totals 50 50 34 116 250 63 96 28 63 250
table shows that neither wealth nor education influences family size among
rural informants. For urban residents, however, the story is quite different. As
expected, those urban informants who have both increased their education and
increased their wealth have small families.
Go through table 21.13 carefully and make the appropriate comparisons
across the rows and between the two halves. Compare also the results of this
table with those of table 21.11, in which wealth status was the dependent variable.
From these tables, we can now hazard a guess about how these variables
interact. We can draw a conceptual model of the whole process we’ve been
looking at. It’s in figure 21.1.