Summary and General Conclusions

Abstract

In Chap. 1, the methodological fallacies of research pn the correlaton of birth order and sibship size to intelligence and other personality variables are enumerated. In segments of the population undergoing differential demographic change the distribution of birth order can be expected to deviate from normality. Because of class-specific changes in postwar fertility and postwar educational and occupational upgrading, among firstborns middle-class subjects will be overrepresented and vice versa.