LARGER FAMILIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 205, 29 August 1936, Page 8

LARGER FAMILIES.

The Minister of Health announced yesterday that the House of Representatives will next year be called upon "to face up to the question of encouraging larger families." It is a major question, but not one that can certainly be solved by legislative action. Exhortation will not be effectual, for there has been plenty of it, inside Parliament and out, and still the Government Statistician reports each year that the Dominion's birthrate is the lowest on record. He has reported in these terms for ten or eleven successive years, in good times and in bad, which suggests that the economic motive, although undoubtedly an important factor, is by no means the only one.

In 1934, of 21,905 births registered, 13,703 were first or second born children, and 17,395 were first, second or third born. The Statistician also found that of the total of 21,905 births only 1310 were of children born to parents who already had five children or more. Not many years ago a family of five was not considered "large," but now it is exceptional. The Minister of Health recently appointed a committee to ascertain why a number of women (of whom more were married than were single) committed or permitted a crime, which caused their deaths, in order to avoid giving birth to children. Yet this is a relatively prosperous country, in which as much is done for the welfare of children as in any other in the Avorld. In no other country is the physical well-being of a new-born child more likely to be secure. But, despite everything, the birth-rate continues to fall. These are facts which Parliament will have to consider when it "faces up" to the question.

The Minister apparently has in mind a plan of child endowment, but Parliament will also have to remember that the decline in the birth-rate has continued despite the operation, since 1927, of the Family Allowances Act, under which in 1934 12,321 families were being helped, and in these the average number of children was less than five. By next year the Government will have had experience of the operation of the basic wage, which is to be commensurate with the needs of a man, wife and three children (one imaginary). It may then be found that the only method available to Parliament of encouraging larger families is to fix the basic wage for the needs of two children, and to raise the upper limit of qualification for the family allowance. The existing limit of £4 excludes from the allowance many families who need help fully as much as some now receiving it.