| Abstract: | A survey was conducted in 1974 among white residents of 16 U.S. cities to investigate the relationship between intelligence and fertility. The IQ was measured with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and fertility was measured on the number of born children. Age, duration of marriage, profession, and influence of social milieu were also taken into consideration. An inverse relationship was found between fertility and IQ, caused by the fact that low IQ women had more unwanted births than high IQ women. It was also shown that low IQ women had an elevated failure rate with any contraceptive method, and that the best way to control their fertility was to utilize exclusively permanent contraceptive methods administered by a physician. |
