Pill’s Effect On N.Z. Birth-rate

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30783, 22 June 1965, Page 1

Pill’s Effect On N.Z. Birth-rate

(At’ic Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 21.

Many thought that the introduction of the oral contraceptive pill caused the decline in the New Zealand birth-rate, the Government Statistician (Mr J. V. T. Baker) told the Wellington Rotary Club today.

“1 am not ready to refute this suggestion, but a certain amount of caution is recommended,” said Mr Baker.

“It is equally true to say that the fall in the birth-rate coincides roughly in time with the introduction of television in New Zealand.

“But it is important in statistics to beware of assuming a cause-and-effect relationship, just because two events happen to occur about the same time,” he said.

New Zealand’s natural increase was about world average, said Mr Baker, with the over-all rate of increase four thousand higher. “Compared with other Western countries, our over-all rate of population growth looks high, but when the rest of the world is surveyed there are plenty of countries whose over-all growth rate is much higher." he said.

Mr Baker said wars, economic depressions, variations in the population age structure, and changes in marriage customs had, until recently, been the major influences on birth-rates.

“Now it appears we must add pills," he said. “Between 1961 and 1965 the birth-rate has fallen by four and a half thousand.

Mr Baker said that since 1961 the decline in the birthrate was sustained with an accelerating downward tendency. It fell from 27 per thousand in 1961, to 24 per thousand in 1964. and seemed likely to be 22.5 per thousand this -year. “This is a very significant change,” said Mr Baker. “Already it is equivalent to a drop in the number of births by nearly 12,000 a year, which, on a numerical basis, is sufficient to cancel out the present average net inflow of New Zealand immigrants. The American birth-rate had fallen between 3000 and 4000 when the pill was introduced, he said. “A few weeks ago we were told that the pills, properly used, were 100 per cent effective. Being a statistician, I have allowed for human error, and taken the pills as being 99.7 per cent effective," said Mr Baker.