LOW BIRTH-RATE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 183, 30 April 1940, Page 9

LOW BIRTH-RATE

Too Few Females To Keep Up Population POSSIBILITY OF DECLINE It is rather remarkable that the Centennial .should be marked by the emergence of a condition whereby retrogression of New Zealand’s Euroitean population should 'be imminent, states tile Commerce Journal. It suggests that female'births are too few for the maintenance of a population increase except by immigration. In the late 'sixties there were 215 children born alive annually in New Zealand for each .1900 women of reproductive age, it i.s pointed out. By 1901 tins figure had fallen to 11 1, and today it is 72. The effects of this drastic decline in actual fecundity have been somewhat offset by the fact that deathrates have declined, too. From about 124 a. 1000 in the late 'sixties and 9J (rt the turn of the century, the crude death-rate lias dropped to around 8 per 1000. New Zealand has long enjoyed tile distinction of possessing 'both the lowest death-rate in the world and'the lowest, rate of infant mortality (from more than 100 in the ’eighties it lias now dropped to 32 out of 1000 children born alive). The average expectation of life in New Zealand (which in the early ’nineties was 55.3 years for males and’sB.l years for' females) bad risen by 1931 to 57.7 years for males and 58.8 years for females. The number of people who died in 1938 in New Zealand was 9.7 out of each 1000 of population, and the number of infants born alive in that year was 17.9 for 1000 of population, so that it would seem that we had a rate of natural increase of 8.2 a 1000 of population in that year. Reasons for Opinion. Such a figure might not suggest that stationary populations are imminent. When, however, consideration is given to the fact that New Zealand has at present—mainly because of factors concerned with its peopling In the past —an exceptionally large proportion of its total population at tlie ages when mortality rates are low and when reproductivity is high, any reason .for complacency vanishes. Actually, since about 1932 insufficient female children have been born to our female population to maintain our present numbers, assuming current rates of mortality and reproduction at the different age groups are perpetuated; and as soon as the present bulge in our population at in early and middle adult life (mainly due to the much higher birth rates formerly prevailing) passes into the older age groups (with their higher mortality and their lower reproductivity) New Zealand’s population will begin to decline —unless the gaps are filled by immigration. New Zealand's crude death-rate (which was actually as low as 7.99 per 100 in 1933) is already rising in sympathy witii increasing proportions of our population in the older age groups, continues the “Commerce Journal.” In 1936 the Kuczyuski net reproduction rate of the (New Zealand population was .967; that is to say, where 1000 female children are required to be born annually in order to keep our population just stationary (assuming present rates of reproduction and mortality at the different age groups are maintained), only 967 female children were born in that year.

POPULATION TRENDS IN NEW ZEALAND

Recent and prospective changes in population in New Zealand are examined by'Dr. E. I’. Neale, president of the Auckland Institute for Educational Research, in» a pamphlet published by the Melbourne University Press. Dr Neale deals with factors responsible for the declining birth-rate and the effects on the economic fabric of tlie Dominion of a possible decline in population. He expresses the opinion that New Zealand has something to gain both economically and culturally from an inlltix of settlers with capital who are no longer desired as citizens in Central Europe, but emphasizes that immigration policy should be regulated by a continuous study of statistical data bearing on absorptive capacity.