LOWER BIRTH-RATE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 295, 26 September 1935, Page 3

LOWER BIRTH-RATE

PEAK POPULATION NEAR.

NEW ECONOMIC FACTORS. The decline in the birth-rates of populations of the Western nations and America is being widely discussed. Writing from London to the "New York Times” Mr Harold Callender says that Britain’s population seems due to reach its peak about the year 1940, if not before. If the pre-slump rate of emigration should return, the declino would 1 begin at once. (Population can be almost accurately predicted ; the official forecast published aftei the 1921 census was shown by the 1931 figures to have erred by only 0.13 per cent.). Jn America the maximum population (about 148,000,000) will be reached, it is predicted, between 1960 and 1970, and it will then decline to some 140,000,000 by the year 2000. Even Germany —though the Nazis urge a high birth-rate—seems destined to follow a similar path; Ernest Kahn predicting the peak of population for 1940. Tho French population has been for several years approximately stationary. Stationary or Declining. Thus, either within the very near future or within less than a generation, the major Western nations seem likely to he confronted by virtually stationary or slightly declining populations. This will necessitate an entirely new outlook regarding public administration and all economic planning (whether by the State or by individuals). The ingrained habit of counting upon expansion—of consumption, of markets, of building, of agriculture and manufacturing—will, it seems, have to he modified. We shall have to grow

accustomed to populations' that remain much the same year after year, or even diminish; to populations composed of fewer children and youths and more elderly persons. Miss Grace Leybourne, in the "Sociological Review,” recently estimated that in Britain the proportion of children under 15 would he reduced by half, while tho proportion of persons ever 65 would be two and one-half times as great as now; and for the United States it lias been computed that by 1980 those between 50 and 69 years of age will comprise 24 per cent, of the total as against 13.9 per cent, in 1930. (This trend has been statistically visible for a generation.) Population Less Youthful. "It will be,” said Sir Josiah Stamp, "as though one-third of the children and adolescents of to-day were transformed overnight into men and women all past middle age.” The population will be, on the whole, less youthful and perhaps less optimistic and less energetic; a more settled as well as a more stable population. The writer discusses the economio changes tho population decline will bring about, its effect upon municipal services, educational requirements and on sections of industry. There will be more wealth per capita, he holds, and hence a. rise in the standard of living, though employment dislocations will have their difficulties. Professor Robins contends that a continued increase in average income, as in England in the last century, is no proof that there is not over-popula-tion. "Over-population may he present long before real incomes begin to go down,” he says. On the other hand, new inventions or economic changes may so alter the economic outlook that tho desirable level of population varies.