SOVIET BIRTHRATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1938, Page 2

SOVIET BIRTHRATE

BIG INCREASE RECORDED. EFFECT OF NEW DECREES. The profound effect of the decree of June 28. 1936, tightening up divorce procedure is shown graphically in statistics just published. In Moscow alone 135.848 babies were born in 1937, almost twice the number of the preceding year. At the same time, with the old "post card" divorce abolished, with rigid regulations to compel fathers to contribute to the support of their babies and with the higher divorce fees, the number of divorces permitted in Moscow in 1937 was 9000. compared with 16.000 in 1936.

Full birth figures for 1937 for other parts of the Soviet Union are not yet published, but earlier reports have told tiie same story as Moscow’s figures —of birth rates almost doubled. That is in a country which, even before the new law. was officially reported to be increasing in population more rapidly than any other country in the world—so rapidly that officials calculated then the population would reach a tofal of 30C.000.000 by 1908. Since one purpose of the laws was to increase man-power for defence and for development of this vast country, that purpose is on the way to fulfilment.

HUGE COSTS. Other Soviet statistics published today show to what extent it is also the State that pays and pays. The new Law contained a provision for maternity pensions for every new child beginning with the seventh. Seven is a fairly steep handicap, but nevertheless enough thousands qualified throughout the Soviet Union last June. 1936, to necessitate the State’s paying out 1,100,000,000 roubles for that purpose. Last summer, when a bumper grain crop was being harvested, the plans were somewhat embarrassed, according to the Soviet Press, by the fact that the first baby harvest matured at the same time. This cut down the number of field workers, since women work alongside men on equal terms. There has been no public complaint, however, of any similar difficulty in industry, where women also work at the same tasks as men. One factory in Leningrad. manufacturing wire cables, has solved the problem neatly. It has installed a special "department of mothers," to which are transferred those who are unable to do heavy work. They are set to work manufacturing tinsel baubles and toys for holiday trees amid pleasant surroundings at wages well above the workers' average.