The Dominion WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1928. THE BIRTH-RATE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 117, 15 February 1928, Page 10

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1928. THE BIRTH-RATE

There are three points of interest and reflection in the latest returns from the Government Statistician’s Office with regard to the birth-rate. The first is that the record low level .of the birth-rate established in 1926 will show a still lower level for 1927. Secondly, the death-rate shows a decline. Thirdly, the infant mortality rate .is a declining quantity. Taking the situation by and large, therefore, the low mortality rate in respect of infants and adults presents a mathematical off-set to the decline in the birth-rate. The Malthusian doctrine in respect to the natural increase of population is subject to a new condition. Account must now be taken of the readjustment of the mortality percentages required by the reduction of the death-rate for infants and adults. The span of life is being increased, and, as a result of the reduction of the infant mortality rate, the ratio of births to deaths has been radically altered. The result, in fact, gives us a new viewpoint. Putting it broadly, there are fewer births, but more births survive, while, at the latter end of life, the incidence of old age is increasing. It might almost seem as if modern conditions were readjusting the balance of population, and that without any kind of appeal to the general public. Divested of sentiment, the fact emerges that people nowadays are averse to the propagation of large families, and for well-known reasons. Present economic conditions make the rearing of large families a problem. To put the case from another point of view, the modern parent is increasingly disposed to shirk his responsibilities. This tendency is partly compensated for by the decline in the adult and infant mortality’ percentages, but it does not provide a solution of ’the problem of the birth-rate—a standing and perplexing problem. There has been a gradual slowing down of the birthrate figures in all European civilisations, including the United States. If this could be maintained at a dead level, there would be little ground for anxiety, for it is a question whether the earth and its food resources would be able ultimately to cope with a demand based upon the Malthusian doctrine. If a falling birth-rate could be off-set by a decline in the mortality rate for young and old, the position is very much “as you were.” But is that the real question? The correction of the wastage at the living end of the population question may be one thing, but the task of making the public realise its responsibilities in regard to the birth-rate is an entirely different matter. The one is scientific: the other, moral and economic.

It is little use preaching about the decline in the birth-rate in the face of a public tendency to shirk the responsibilities of parenthood, partly from economic reasons and partly from pure selfishness. This tendency is not local, but world-wide. At the same time, tfie percentage rate is not universal. The birth-rate is higher in some countries than in others, and that is where the danger lies. Population in modern times exhibits a tendency to follow the flow of social currents as water seeks to find its own level. At certain points it meets with obstruction, wells up, and overflows. But the fecundity rate is greatest amongst the poorer classes and the poorer nations, not, as one might reasonably expect, amongst the well-to-do individuals and nations who can afford large families. If the reverse were the case, progress and prosperity would rest upon a more substantial foundation.