Fewer Family Disrup.

Fewer Family Disrup.

In Local Area

Thanks to the dramatic progress that has been made in the fields of medicine and public health in recent years, residents of Rappahannock County have a greater life expectancy today than they ever had.

For the average man locally, the chances of living to see his children married and self-supporting have improved considerably. So have his chances of surviving to the age of retirement.

The findings are based upon a national study of family stability, conducted by life insurance statisticians It shows that a child has 96 chances out of 100 of sup viving from the time he is born until the time he gets married. Back in 1940 it was only 92 out of 100. For the 67 young men in Rap pahannock County who turned 18 this year and are just going to work or college, approxt mately 50 of them will live to the retirement age of 65, according to the statistics. Under present conditions, the odds are 69 our of 100 that they will live at least that long. A generation ago, the odds were 63 out of 100. For a man, the period of maximum family responsibility begins when he marries and it continues for the next 30 years or so. His survival thrugh this ■period, when there are likely to be dependent children in the family, is of great social and economic import a nee. Of the 65 men in the local area who are now at the aver1 age marrying age of 23, the figures indicate that about 60 of them— 87.7 percent of the total—will be alive at age 54, which is the average age at which the marriage of the last child in the family takes place. In 1940, only 83.3 pervent lived long enough to see their youngest child married. For women, the chances of survival are greater than for men at every period of life, the study shows. Young women have better than 99 chances in 100 of successfully getting through the first 10 years of married life, when most of their children are born. As for she average Rappahannock County woman, from the time her first child is born, at age 22, to the marriage of her last one, when she is 52, her chances of being around to witness that event are now 94.4 percent, a s against 89.6 percent in 1940.