CRITICAL STAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 26

CRITICAL STAGE.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES PROPORTION IN DOMINION. WHAT CENSUS FIGURES TELL. A decrease in the proportion t.f married to unmarried men and women in New Zealand has developed over the past ten years, according to an analysis of the lll.'iii census (inures, issued liv the (!ovvrnment Statistician. | "In \ icw ni' the present critical stage j of the Dominion's population, the pro- j portion of persons who have never mar-1 l ied merits examination," savs the | ollicial statement. "The majority of persons marry between the ages of 20 j and .'!(• years, and comparisons with the j l ( suits of the liClti census show that lietween these aoes there were delinitelv higher proportions (and higher numbers i unmarried in liClti than was the ca-c ten years earlier." A summarised comparison of the proportion of those who had never married shows the following position: — Men. Women. hi.l'.iu'i;. i !»;jn. Aire. I'it it'in. l'cr cent. .. 81J.77 ilt.L'o 71.54 — .VJ.lt; 5.-1.81 U H7.S!) .•pi-.'H . . I'H.OT L'!I.!IS L'L'.ol L'L'.liK 3"i .'!!! .. JO. 11> J0.02 17.JJ 17.07 Tn the census the major age groups were between 20 and 40, with the largest number of persons in the group from 2.") to •'!() years of age, in which there were (i:i.72fl men and ti1.2.")9 women. Men continued to outnumber women up to the nge of after which women were in the majority to the age of ot). From 60 to 80 men were again a larger group' than women, but among persons over .SO | years of age women were slightly more J numerous than men. | As in the 1920 census men and youths I over 16 years of age outnumbered girls I and women recorded as of marital status. The figures in the latest census, ! with those of 192ti in parenthesis, were: —Men (and youths over lti), 547.22S (408.75o); women (and girls over 10), 53."),044 (449,019).