Fewer pyjamas but more ex-nuptial births

Press, 3 September 1984, Page 6

Fewer pyjamas but more ex-nuptial births

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney

Fewer Australian men sleep in pyjamas and they are fathering more children outside marriage, according to the “Year Book Australia 1984.”

However, the book, which is a trivia buffs dream, makes no connection between the two categories compiled from Bureau of Statistics figures. According to a publicity release on the book, between 1961 and 1965, 5.9 per cent of births were exnuptial, while in 1982 the 32,958 registered ex-nuptial births represented 13.7 per cent of the total.

On the topic of men’s pyjamas, production has dropped 26 per cent since 1979-1980, although 269,000 pairs were still sold in 19811982. . -> ■

Other trivia include the fact that Australians ate an average 89.8 kg of meat and 19.1 kg of poultry each in 1981-1982, the average Aus-

tralian drank less beer but made up for it in wine, and Australian pets ate less canned food and more manufactured products including biscuits. •

Australian women were using lipstick at a fairly even spread compared with previous years. Australians are also getting older, the median age of the population increasing from 27.5 years in 1971 to 29.9 years in June, 1982.

As a possible guide for New Zealand politicians to what makes their Australian counterparts tick, the book notes that Canberra, the nation’s capital and seat of the Federal Government, is fogbound for 46 days a year, more than any other State capital.

It also has the least number of days of “agreeable climate” — only 192 days a year when the temperature is between 15deg. and 27deg. compared, for example, with 356 days in Brisbane.