Essentials of Family Statistics

The social statistician and actuary who professes to practice in the subject matters outlined in our Society's Constitution will sometime in the course of his career have occasion to compile or to use the social statistics which are, or at least should be, the firm support for every program of social legislation. Facts on human aggregation, association and economic status precede, in our branch of insurance science, all matters of theory and practice in administration, rate making and experience analysis. What would it avail the present actuarial and administrative structure of employers' liability and workmen's compensation if no facts on its social urgency were at hand? In what way shall we justify the institution of workmen's compensation in the first place, and its continuation along present lines, in the second place, if not through a demonstration of its social utility? Have we really determined by an appeal to facts that health insurance, for instance, should not be administered through a nation-wide, non-political, mutual carrier or organization of carriers in harmony with the principles underlying the co-operative and friendly society movement established by the great British Liberals of file nineteenth century?