THE PROPORTION OF CHILDREN TO WOMEN IN THE URBAN AND RURAL COMMUNITIES OF THE UNITED STATES, ALSO IN CERTAIN SELECTED

*This includes only the negro population of the South Atlantic, the

East South Central and the West South Central States.

the respective rates of natural increase. The death rate of the children of immigrants is much higher than that of children of natives. The presumption, then, is decidedly against accepting the view that the movement of population in New England is typical of all parts of the United States.

THE MOVEMENT OF THE POPULATION IN THE DIFFERENT
SECTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES

In order to show the relative rates of increase of the urban and rural populations in different parts of the country I have prepared the table on p. 24. In this table the number of children 0-4 and 5-9 years of age (columns 1 and 2) per 1,000 women of child-bearing age-15-44 years of age-is given for a number of the different geographical and political units of the nation. The proportion of women 15-44 years of age and the proportion of native population to the whole population (columns 3 and 4) are also given for each of these units. At the end of the table will be found some of the same data for a few foreign countries.

Although this is not the most accurate way possible of measuring the rate of natural increase in different classes of the population and in different sections of the country, it is the best at present available and, on the whole, gives us a very good notion of the movements now taking place. The proportion of children to married, widowed and divorced women would not be as good an index of natural increase, because the presence of a large number of unmarried women or women who marry late in life, as in our city population at present, is in itself a proof of race suicide. To eliminate these women from the cal

culations would, therefore, be to secure a measure of the relative size of the family in the country and the city rather than a measure of the natural increase.

The following data will show, however, that the conclusions to be drawn from the table referred to above would be cor¬ roborated by a more detailed study showing the proportion of children to married women.

NUMBER OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OF AGE PER 1,000 MARRIED, WIDOWED, OR DIVORCED WOMEN 15-44 YEARS OF AGE IN THE URBAN AND RURAL COMMUNITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS GEOGRAPHIC DIVISIONS (WHITE POPULATION ONLY)

The fact standing out most clearly in the table given above is that in every state the proportion of children to women is greater in the country than in the cities. In the New England States as a whole the number of children under five years of age to 1,000 women is 19.3 per cent. greater in the rural districts than in the urban. In all the other geographical divisions of the nation the difference is even greater than in New England. In the Middle Atlantic States it is 28.8 per cent., in the East North Central States it is 36.9 per cent., while in the West South Central States it is 80.0 per cent. These facts show beyond question that the rural population has a greater rate of natural increase than the city population.

The full significance of this fact only becomes apparent, however, when we compare the proportion of native population in these two classes of communities. The proportion of native stock is invariably greater in the country than in the city. The greatest differences are to be found in New England and the Middle Atlantic States, but the difference is also considerable in the East North Central States. In the other parts of the nation the differences are not very large. It is also worth noting that in those sections where the differences are greatest the foreign stock in the cities is of the newer immigration,

while in those sections where the differences are comparatively small the foreigners in both country and city are of the older immigration.

THE INCREASE OF NATIVE AND FOREIGN STOCK IN THE CITIES.

The proportion of children to women in the urban population shows a remarkable uniformity throughout the United States. Only in the West North Central and Pacific States does the proportion fall below 375 per 1,000 and it exceeds 425 in only a few of the states-chiefly the southern states. But in spite of this great uniformity, it is apparent that those urban communities of the north and west of which the newer immigrants form a large proportion have a greater number of children per 1,000 women than those in which the proportion of native stock, or older immigrant stock, is large.

This appears more clearly if instead of confining our attention to the geographical divisions we pick out certain cities representative of different elements of the population. Practically any of the larger cities in the northeastern part of the country have a large proportion of the newer immigrants. Boston, New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as many others, have a proportion of children much greater than Indianapolis, Kansas City, Denver and Los Angeles. In the former, people of the newer immigrant stocks predominate, while in the latter native stock predominates. In such cities as Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis, where the older immigrant stocks (chiefly German and Scandinavian) predominate and there is also a good proportion of native stock the proportion of children is smaller than in the cities with the newer immigrant stocks, but larger than in the cities where native stock predominates. In the distinctly southern cities, however, where the white population is almost entirely native stock, the proportion of children is little, if any, smaller than in the northern cities with a large proportion of the newer immigrant stock. But only a small proportion of the city population of the United States is to be found in the southern states.

If, then, it were a question of the relative rates of natural increase of the native and immigrant stocks in our urban population only, there can be no doubt that the newer immigrants would become a steadily increasing proportion of the whole, with the older immigrants a poor second and the native stock an "also ran." But the urban population was only about 46 per cent. of our entire population at the last census. Therefore, before we become unduly excited about the extinction of the

Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic stock in our country, let us examine the data showing the proportion of children to women in the rural districts rather carefully.

THE INCREASE OF THE RURAL POPULATION COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE URBAN POPULATION

Although, as was pointed out above, the proportion of children in the rural districts is everywhere greater than in the cities, there is by no means as great a uniformity in this proportion in the country as in the city. There are three general divisions into which the states fall with respect to the proportion of children to women in the rural population:

1. The New England and the Atlantic Coast States as Far South as Delaware.-In these states the number of children varies from 412 in Massachusetts to 493 in Maine. This is the smallest proportion for any group of states. In all these states the rural population is a relatively small proportion of the whole and is largely composed of the old native stock. There has been a selective process going on for several generations in the rural population of these states. The more active, wideawake, and ambitious men and women have either gone west to new lands or they have migrated to the cities to seek their fortunes. This has had a detrimental effect upon country life and is probably responsible in large measure both for the decadent population now to be found in the rural districts of these states and the unprogressive character of the farming carried on there.

2. The States of the Northern, Central and Western Part of the Country.-In these states there is a wide variation in the proportion of children to women. In general, however, they have more than 500 and less than 600. California and Nevada have less than 500, while the Dakotas and some of the other northwestern states have over 600. There does not seem to be any close relation between the foreign stock and a large proportion of children to women in these states. It is true that North Dakota with a very large foreign element in the rural population has over 700 children per 1,000 women, but there are several states with a preponderantly native element in the population which have a larger number of children per 1,000 women than Minnesota and Wisconsin, in which the population is largely composed of Germans and Scandinavians and their children. In those states where frontier conditions still exist, we almost invariably find a relatively large proportion of children. Thus the proportion of children in the rural population