BABIES AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3092, 24 May 1917, Page 6

BABIES AND WAR

THE SEX PROPORTIONS INTERESTING FIGURES A tradition exists that a nation at war tends to produce an increased proportion of male babies, Nature thus making an effort to restore the balance upset by the loss of life on. the field of battle. Recent statistics from England and France do not support this belief, which is stated to date from the Napoleonic wars, and Now Zealand figures rlso fnil to reveal any marked variation from the normal proportion of the sexes anion* the babies. The New Zealand totals of births for tlie last four years are as follows:— Males. Females. 9 ? 1M33 13,502 ] »U u,535 13,803 9 5 14,415 13,435 ri l9l C • H. 869 13,810 The actual proportions of the two sexes aro shown in the following table rep £ es ,^ g the numlw r of males to each 1000 females among the babies born in the years enumerated:— ,„,„ Males. Females. J?, 13 -. f>o69 1,000 Hit- 1,053 1,000 \l ? • 1,073 1,000 ,;»]!> 1,059 1,000 191 1 ■■. 1,008 1,000 'First quarter. The marked variations in the proportions year by year are characteristic of Hie Sev Zealand statistics, and may be traced back over a long period of years, Iliere does not appear to be, any reason to believe that the war has affected the proportions of the sexes at birth as far as Aew Zealand is concerned.