FAMILIES SMALLER.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 7

FAMILIES SMALLER.

ENGLAND’S CENSUS RETURNS. The final report on the census of England and Wales, taken in 1921, was published recently. It dealt elaborately with the working and the difficulties encountered and overcome (states the “Morning Post”). The total expenditure was £351,334, or £9 5/6 a 1000 population. In 1921 th® cost was £4 9/6 a 1000. “The increase is due entirely to the greatly enhanced cost of living, which at the date of the census was almost at its highest,” says the reporlt. The total population enumerated in England and Wales on the night of T une 19, 1921, numbered 37,886,699 persons, of whim 18,075,239 were males, and 19,811,460 females. This total :la the largest ever recorded in Great Britain, and exceeds the number returned at the enumeration of April 2, 1911. by 1,816,207. Though an increase has been recorded at every census, the rate of growth between 1911 and 1921 was smaller than that of any preceding decade, for. which the adverse effect of the wai! must be acounted mainly responsible, both in the losses among men of military age and in the unprecedented fail in the birth rate.

Births, which in the period 1901-10 had averaged about 930,000 per annum, with a slightly decreasing tendency, fell below the 900,000 point for each of the years 1911-14, and thereafter diminished at a much greater pace to 1918, when n minimum of between 662,000 and 663,000 was registered. Though the direction (of the movement changed upon the cessation of the principal hostilities in 1918, and large increases were recorded after th* 1 middle of 1919, the actual amount of the increase within the intercensal period bad not been nearly sufficient to compensate for the deficiencies of the war years. Deaths, on the other sand, if account be taken of those of non-officials belonging to England and Wales which occurred overseas, showed no such decline between 1914 and 1918. The peace-time average of 507,000 registered in 1911-13 rose to between 600,000 and 700,000 in each of the years 1915-17, and probably reached 750,000 in 1918, owing to the further imposition of the severe influenza mortality experienced towards the end of that year. After 1918 the death rate, like the birth rate, at once took a favourable turn, the numbers ultimately showing a notable reduction, eveD hi comparison with those of the years preceding the war. Attention is called to the fact that, notwithstanding the house shortage, the total number of rooms available for habitation war greater in relation to the population than it was in 1911. At the same time, families were, on the whole, smaller, than they were 10 years before, and, since small families were able to command a- higher standard o * housing than the larger, they absorbed a greater share of the available house accommodation than they had in 1911. It was largely to this change and to the uneven distribution of accommodation throughout the country that the present situation was due. In the matter of sex distribution also the war had been responsible for a greatlv increased disparity of numbers, the surplus of women exceeding 1,700,000, compared with less than 1.200,000 in 1911. Statistics are given which show the comparatively heavy -eduction in the number of aliens ir Ae country from a proportion of 790 r 100,000 total inhabitants in 1911 to 602 in 1921. The number of Germans fell from 53,324 to 12,358, and the nationals of most of the European countries were reduced considerably.