Birth rate

“ This of itself, however, is not enough to prove a declining birth rate, as the decrease in the proportion of children in the total population may indicate merely an increase in the average duration of life and the consequent survival of a larger number of adults.
But by taking the proportion of children to women of child-bearing age we are able to get a more satisfactory index of the movement of the birth rate. Between 1850 and 1860, the earliest decade for which figures can be obtained, this proportion increased. ”

“ On the contrary they are all, even France, increasing at a more or less rapid rate. In England and Wales, for example, where the birth-rate has steadily fallen during the last forty years from 36 to 23 (I disregard the abnormal rates of War-time) the population is still increasing, and even if the present falls in birth-rate and death-rate continue, it will for years still go on increasing by an excess of over 1,000 births a day. ”

“ The birth-rate is the number of births per 1,000 of the whole population. In order to make a fair comparison between one community and another, the birth-rate is often calculated as the number of births per 1,000 married women between 15 and 45 years of age, as these constitute the great majority of child-bearing mothers. ”

“ The present low rate of natural increase in France is not necessarily due to its low birth-rate, as Ontario in Canada, with a similar birth-rate, had a death-rate of 10 per thousand, or a natural increase of 9 per thousand—nearly as great as our own. ”

“ Birth Rates in the French Departments Every nation except France is increasing in population; but the birth rate is decreasing everywhere. Statistics can be misapplied to almost any purpose. Thus since 1876 the birth rate for France has decreased from 25 to 21 per thousand, whereas for England it has decreased from 36 to 27, and it might be alleged that, should the same decrease continue, the birth rate after an equal period would be about the same for France and England, and about a hundred years thereafter would be 5 in France and less than nothing in England. ”

“ It must not be supposed that a high rate of infant mortality, which almost invariably accompanies a high birth-rate, either in London or elsewhere, goes far toward counteracting the effects of the differential birth-rate. Where infant mortality is highest the average number of children above the age of two for each married woman is highest also, and although the chances of death at all ages are greater among the inhabitants of the poorer quarters, their rate of natural increase remains considerably higher than that of the inhabitants of the richer. ”

“ All the nations of Western and Central Europe are moving towards a lower birth-rate and in France this diminution has reached a point where there is no longer a natural increase. In a few decades the birth rate will probably begin to fall everywhere faster than the death rate declines. An adjustment of the population to its probable resources will be in progress. ”

“ These causes, however, may operate to a great extent upon the birth-rate itself without diminishing the growth of population, because the children, though born in smaller proportion, are better cared for, and the rate of excess of births over deaths consequently remains considerable, although the birth-rate itself is low. The serious fact would be a decline of the rate of the excess of births over deaths through the death-rate remaining comparatively high while the birth-rate falls. ”

“ It has been already remarked that, at the present rate of decrease, the birth-rate will be reduced to zero within a century. If the birth-rates in England, Germany, and France should continue to decrease as they have since 1880, there would be no children born, one hundred years hence, in these countries. ”

“ On the other hand, in the more backward and ignorant countries of Europe, Birth Control is still little known, and death and disease flourish. This is the case in those eight European countries which come at the bottom of the list of the Birth Control scale, and in which the birth-rate is the highest and the death-rate the heaviest—the two rates maintaining such a constant correspondence as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that they are associated as cause and effect. ”

“ It is thus clear that the birth-rate combined with the death-rate constitutes a delicate instrument for the measurement of civilisation, and that the record of these combined curves registers the upward or downward course of every nation. The curves, as we know, tend to be parallel, and when they are not parallel we are in the presence of a rare and abnormal state of things which is usually temporary or transitional. ”

“ When we are comparing the birth-rate and the death-rate in different countries, these causes of error must not be forgotten.
In the twentieth century, in the civilised countries of Europe, the premature births vary between 5 and 9 per cent., and the still-births between 3 and 4 per cent., of all births. For every 100 still-born girls there are approximately 130 still-born boys. Among the lower classes of the population, still-births are more frequent than among the upper classes. ”

“ At the present time the birth-rate (as well as usually the death-rate) is falling in every country of the world sufficiently civilised to possess statistics of its own vital movement. The fall varies in rapidity. It has been considerable in the more progressive countries; it has lingered in the more backward countries. If we examine the latest statistics for Europe (usually those for 1913) we find that every country, without exception, with a progressive and educated population, and a fairly high state of social well-being, presents a birth-rate below 30 per 1,000. ”

“ Factors Contributing to Low Birth-Rate in Desirable Strains.—Most students of the subject believe that the fecundity of much of the best blood in our country has reached such a low ebb as to threaten the whole fabric of our commonwealth. How to correct this is the pressing problem to which no one has found a solution. However much one may deplore it the fact remains that always in the history of the civilized world with the rise of material conditions in any class of a population there has come an accompanying limitation of child-birth. ”

“ But it is well known that, wherever statistics are kept, the numbers of births and of deaths rise and fall in nearly parallel lines, so that the net rate of increase hardly alters at all, unless some change, which can easily be traced, occurs in the habits of the people or in the amount of the food supply. In civilised countries the greater care taken of human life, and its consequent prolongation, has reduced the birth-rate, just as in the higher mammals we find a greatly diminished fertility as compared with the lower, and a much higher survival-rate among the offspring born. ”

“ Reference has been made here to birth rates and death rates as compiled in the excellent report of the registrar general of England, and it may be worth while to call attention to the data concerning marriage rates. The decreasing birth rate, the employment of women in industry and other social conditions lead many to surmise
Birth Rates. ”

“ All the available statistical information seems to justify the conclusion that the world’s population in general, and of the more civilized countries in particular is increasing at the present time at a more rapid rate than in earlier years—a condition largely the result of a persistent and considerable decline in the birth rate. ”

“ Therefore, a high birth-rate does not of necessity imply that population will be increased or that overpopulation will occur. Again, if the birth-rate fell as the population increased, the danger of overpopulation would be avoided without the aid of a high death-rate. ”

“ Birth Control, in the true meaning of the term, does not mean theories and practices which would tend to reduce the population of the civilized countries of the world, but rather theories and practice which would inevitably result in the production of an adequate ratio of increase in the population of such countries, not only by reason of a normal birth-rate, but also by reason of a diminishing death-rate among infants—by the production of healthier children, accompanied by the raising of the standard of the average child born in such countries. ”

“ In the Australian Commonwealth, where birth control is taken as a matter of course, and information concerning contraceptives is available to the masses, the births were so well distributed in 1915 that while the birth rate was 27.3, there was an infant death rate of only 10.7. New Zealand, which is also one of the typical birth-control countries, had a birth rate of 25.3 and an infant death rate of only 9.1 for the same year. ”

“ The decline in the birth-rate is—so far as England and Wales goes—partly a real decline due to a decline in gross immorality, partly to a real decline due to the later age at which women marry, and partly a statistical decline due to an increased proportion of people too old or too young for child-bearing. Wherever the infant mortality is falling there is an apparent misleading fall in the birth-rate due to the “loading” of the population with children. ”

“ Marie, again with an enormous birth-rate, stands third for infant mortality. Canada shows us that, even if we regard the crude desire for a large growth of population as reasonable—and that is a considerable assumption—a high birth-rate is an uncertain prop to rest on. ”

“ From all of this it is clear, not only that the coloured birth rate is low and is falling, but why it is low, and why it is falling. It is almost impossible that it should long remain so much as thirty-five per thousand per annum, or even thirty-four or thirty-three. It seems certainly descending towards thirty—that is, 300 births per myriad yearly. But the present death rate is 296 per myriad ”