GRADING REPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 4, 5 July 1943, Page 4

GRADING REPORT

CALL UP FOR SERVICE

MARRIED AND SINGLE

Of 233,012 men called up for service and medically examined up to March 31 last it is shown in the annual report of the National Service Department that 122,932 were classified grade I, 22,913 were declared temporarily unfit and their service was deferred, 30,701 were classified grade 11, 46,344 were grade 111, and 10,122 grade IV. These figures represent the results of original gradings and do not allow for subsequent regradings. An analysis of the reasons for the placing of men in other than grade I is as follows:—lnfections and parasitic diseases, 0.6; nervous and mental diseases. 6.4; cardio-vascular diseases, 15.7; alimentary diseases!" 5.4; respiratory diseases, 6.0; disorders of bones and organs of locomotion, 31.3, including disorders'of. lower'extremities (excluding flat feet), 15.9; ear disorders, 3.8; eye disorders, 11.8; other classes, 19.0. . : " „ The report says that. a . comparison shows that balloted married men have been found fitter than balloted single men of similar age. This, states the" report, is due to a combination ot factors, notably (a) the fact that the ranks of single men are continually being depleted of relatively fit.men,by transfer to the married classes on marriage, and (b) the fact that a relatively greater number of fit single men had volunteered and been accepted for service prior to the introduction of compulsory service..leaving a.greater proportion of less fit volunteer rejects to be" included in the ballots. • There was, however, another factor which tended to reduce the number of fit men yielded from the whole groups of married men as compared with single men considered in one block, and that was the relative age-distribution of married and single men respectively. The average age of single men was much . below that of married men of 'military age, so that the married men. while fitter at each age point, were older on S the average.