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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE1

IT is a custom of this Section, I believe, for the retiring vice-president to select for his address a subject of national interest in the field of social economy. He is expected to avoid narrow and technical discussion of specialties but he may properly summarize the important works of other investigators in specialized fields to show their trend and bearing and he may also point out the direction which further research should take. These requirements of the occasion are all the more necessary now in view of the circumstances under which we are living. We are going through a period of serious conflict. Our nation is at present engaged in concentrating its resources of men, of materials and, above all, of thought, to make itself felt in the world struggle for preserving civilization. This is no time for trivialities or for small detail. Under these conditions, the Section on Social and Economic Science of the American Association may be expected to have a message of national import. It would be inexcusable to take your time and attention for anything but a topic of the widest practical significance in the present national emergency.

With these considerations in mind, I have chosen as the subject of this address the significance of our declining birth rate. I have done so with considerable hesitancy because of the difficulty of the subject and the importance of its present lesson. I

1 Address of the retiring vice-president and chairman of Section I, Social and Economic Science, American Association for Advancement of Science, Pittsburgh, December 29, 1917.

shall count also on your forbearance, hoping that you will forgive the incompleteness and sketchy character of my argument. The study of American demography has convinced me that we are concerned with a problem of the greatest possible moment. Changes have been progressing in the internal structure of our population which have, for the most part, escaped attention. and which, if allowed to continue, will result in very serious national embarrassment. Conditions of war bring into relief the necessity for a vigorous and efficient population. It is not too much to say that the present tendencies in our national and family life are such as seriously threaten the development of those groups in the population on which we must rely for vigor and efficiency in thought and action.

The declining birth rate has received but little scientific attention in the United States. It has been, however, the subject of very careful investigation in Europe. During the last fifty years, the birth rate has declined in virtually every country of the civilized world. Some countries have been affected more than others, but the phenomenon has been observed in extreme form in one country, namely, France. France has made an experiment in birth control on a national scale. All the parts of that experiment, including the end result, are now on view and available for scientific observation and comment. Before the present war, France had already reached a point where her birth rate had decreased to a point below her death rate; her population was actually decreasing. But for ten years before that time, the approaching crisis had called for the careful attention of her best minds.

A commission on depopulation composed of statesmen and sociologists was appointed to study the problem and a series of com

prehensive reports on the sources of depopulation have been prepared. These reports are too elaborate for detailed description here. I shall rather present the situation for France, as I understand it, in broad outline, bringing into relief only the main findings of the commission.

Let us consider the growth of population during the last century in the three leading countries of western Europe, namely, France, the United Kingdom and the states composing the German Empire. At the beginning of the nineteenth century France was the leader of the three countries, with a population of about twenty-nine million. The states which now compose the German Empire were second, with a population of about twenty-three million, and the United Kingdom stood third with a population of about eighteen million. A century later, we find the situation totally changed. The German Empire headed the list with a population of nearly sixty-five million, the United Kingdom was second with a population of forty-five million and France was third with a population of only thirty-nine million. In other words, while the population of the German Empire had nearly trebled and the United Kingdom had increased to two and one half times its earlier numbers, the population of France had increased less than one half. Further inspection of the figures shows that a marked change in the rate of increase of the population of France occurred about the year 1860. At that time France was still in the lead and had already reached a population of thirty-seven million. After that date it

2 A series of reports on the death rate by Bertillon, Löwenthal, Drouineau, Atthalin, Fevrier, and Strauss; and on the birth rate by Neymarck, March, Bertillon, Rey, Drouineau, Atthalin and Lyon-Caen. Melun, Imprimerie Administrative,

Paris.

3 Burn, Joseph, "Vital Statistics Explained," London, 1914, page 19.

increased only two million, while Germany in the same period almost doubled in population. In 1811, the population of France constituted 16 per cent. of all Europe. One hundred years later the French population constituted only 9 per cent. of the total.

This situation for France may be accounted for principally in terms of its declining birth rate. Such figures as I have for France show that at about 1830 the rate was 30 births per 1,000 of population. The last available figure for 1914 was 18 per 1,000; the death rate was 19.6 per 1,000.5 This was the first war year, but already in 1911 the death rate, 19.6, exceeded the birth rate, 18.7. The reduction of more than one third in the birth rate during the eighty years was both gradual and continuous. On the other hand, the birth rates in the German Empire and in the United Kingdom continued high, over 30 per 1,000 up to 1895 in the latter and up to 1909 in the former. Since then the birth rates have declined rapidly in both countries, but the enormous increases in population for both Germany and the United Kingdom were achieved before the changes in the birth rate began to make themselves seriously felt.

We are not concerned entirely with gross totals of population. Equally significant is the internal structure of population. As we shall see later, changes in the constitution of a population almost invariably appear with changes in the birth rate. This will become clearer by comparing the ages below which, one quarter, one half and three quarters of the total populations of

4''Ministere du Travail et de la Prevoyance Sociale,' Statistique Internationale du Mouvement de le Population jusqu'en 1905, Vol. 1, 1907.

5 Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales, 1915, p. 71.

Germany, of England and Wales and of France, respectively, are found. Thus, one quarter of the population of Germany is under age eleven, one quarter of the population of England and Wales is under twelve years of age, whereas one quarter of the French population is under fourteen years. Again, one half of the population. of Germany is found under 23.5 years, one half of the population of England and Wales is below twenty-six years while one half of the French population is below age thirty. We find, finally, that three quarters of the population of Germany is below age forty-one years, of England and Wales is below forty-two years and of France is below forty-nine years. These figures show clearly that the average age of the French population is considerably higher than that of the other two countries. Its youth and its strength form a smaller part of its total population, while its old and its dependents form a much larger part. This we shall find is an invariable consequence of a decreasing birth rate, which reduces the proportion of the young and thus brings into relief an undue proportion of the aged.

The declining national birth rate of France is also severely selective in character. The reduction of the birth rate has affected mostly those who are both economically and socially best fitted to bear and to raise a family to maturity. A careful classification by Bertillon' of the number of children per 100 families in Paris, shows that the very poor have the largest number and the very rich the smallest number of children. The order of size of the family is invariably the reverse of the order of economic condition. Since economic status

6 Burn, Joseph, op. cit., p. 30.

7 Bertillon, Jacques, "Nombre d'Enfants par Familles," Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris, April, 1901, p. 134.

is highly associated with efficiency and social worth, low birth rates in the best equipped groups of the population can have but one effect on the vital constitution of the next generation-namely a decline in constructive effort for national development.

Evidence suggestive of such decline in national development is afforded by the fact that coincident with a rapidly declining birth rate, France has had a high and rather stationary death rate during the last quarter of a century. England, through the development of its public health service, reduced its death rate to under 14 per 1,000 in the year before the war (1913) when France had a death rate four per 1,000 higher. In spite of the low French birth rate, the infant mortality rate has not been low, and has been coupled with a high still birth rate. The death rate from tuberculosis in France has recently come into public notice here because of war conditions, but it was high before the war. The acute infectious diseases, including typhoid fever, which have so readily lent themselves to control in other European countries and in the United States, show unsatisfactory death rates for France. In fact, we find in this country, side by side with a low rate of reproduction, evidence of indifference to the conservation of the valuable lives that are born. A disturbing element in the French situation to-day is the lack of a national public health program. Is it not possible that such conditions result directly from the absence in the community of those earnest and able men who everywhere further progress along social and economic lines? These leaders of the nation are absent because they were not born.

It is painful to say these things at this time and I should refrain from referring to them were it not for the necessity of em

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phasizing the facts which so directly affect our own American population problems.

The experience of England has been much less acute, although the tendency of the most recent years has been as disturbing as that in France during the previous decade. In the five-year period between 1871 and 1875, the birth rate was 35.5 per 1,000 of population. In the period 1911 to 1914, inclusive, the birth rate was only 24 per 1,000. The reduction in the birth rate in England has been accompanied, to be sure, with a very healthy decline in the death rate. In the forty-odd years since 1871 this has decreased from 22 to less than 14 per 1,000; whereas the decreasing birth rate in France did not accompany any appreciable reduction in the death rate. The rate of natural increase has, however, declined in England from 13.5 in the period 1871-1875 to 10.1 per 1,000 in the period 1911-1914. England was still increasing in population at the rate of 1 per cent. annually before the war. The reduction in the rate of natural increase and certain internal changes in structure of population had, however, become a source of apprehension to English statesmen and a commission of qualified experts was appointed to study and report on the problem. Their findings have been available for some time and may be summarized as follows:

The birth rate has declined to the extent of approximately one third during the last thirty-five years.

This decline has not been due to any large extent to a decline in the marriage rate or to a rise in the mean age at mar

8 Baines, Sir J. Athelstane, "The Recent Trend of Population in England and Wales," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, London, July, 1916, p. 399.

9 National Birth Rate Commission, "The Declining Birth Rate-Its Causes and Effects," London,

1916.

riage or to other causes diminishing the proportion of married women of fertile age in the population. The decline has been due rather to a conscious limitation of fertility in the large mass of the population. The decline in the birth rate, although general, has not been uniformly distributed over all sections of the community. It has affected primarily those economic and social groups which, as we have shown for France, are best able to bear and maintain a good-sized family. Thus, we find that the number of legitimate births per 1,000 married males under 55 years in England and Wales was 119 for the upper and middle classes and 213 for the unskilled workmen, with a maximum of 230 among the miners.10 The birth rate is greater as the economic and social status is lower.

Internal changes of population are taking place in England very similar to those observed in France. Under the influence of the decreasing birth rate the average age of the population of England and Wales is rising and the proportion of old persons is, of course, correspondingly increasing. If we keep in mind also that the mortality rates of females at the adult ages are progressively lower than those for males we are not surprised to find that the increasing proportion of old people is greater among females than among males. While there were, for example, 119 females per 100 males in 1871 at the ages sixty-five and over, the number in 1911 had become 132. The disturbing element in this picture is that the population is growing older not only through the increased longevity of its constituents but more especially through the decreasing reenforcement from its youth and, due to the operation of mortality, that there is a progressive ex

10 Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales, 1912, p. xxiii.

cess of females over males at the older ages. The situation in England may be summed up in the words of her leading demographer, Sir J. Athelstane Baines, as follows:

In the last forty years, the proportion of people of an age to marry has materially increased, but they marry less and later in life, and thus, to some extent, cause a reduction in the number of births. The main cause of the falling birth rate, however, is the decline in the fertility of the married, due to the voluntary restriction of childbearing, a decline which has been especially rapid since the beginning of the century. The effects of the fall in the birth rate have been neutralized, until within the last few years, by a still greater fall in the death rate. The improvement has not been so marked among the very young and the old as at adolescence and in the prime of life. While, therefore, the rate of natural increase has diminished less than the fall in the birth rate would indicate, it has been maintained at the expense of the young.

As the proportion of infants with a high mortality decreased that of the ages of low mortality increased. The death rate went down, and the balance of population became economically favorable. But as the supply of infants diminishes relatively to the rest of the community, and their elders pass from their prime into the time of life when mortality is heavy, the proportionate supply of potential parents of the most prolific ages tends to decrease, the birth rate falls more rapidly, and the death rate begins to rise, leaving the margin of natural increase alarmingly narrow. The result is an older and less vigorous people; and as the vitality of women is greater than that of men, more of the former sex reach maturity, and they last longer, so that a relatively small and probably wholesome numerical superiority at the working ages is converted into a growing preponderance of old women in the vale of life.11

I shall now present the situation for the United States. Superficially, the facts of American population growth present a very favorable picture. Each successive census has shown a marked increase in our total population over the preceding one; that for 1910 showed an increase of nearly 16 million lives over 1900, or 21 per cent.

11 Baines, Sir J. Athelstane, op. cit., p. 413.

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