AUSTRALIAN BIRTHS
Decline Causes Alarm (Received May 26. 7 p.m.) CANBERRA, May 26.
Claiming that "if present conditions continue” there can be no hope of a recovery and continued rise in the Australian birth-rate, the National Health and Medical Research Council has invited women to send unsigned letters giving their reasons for limiting their families. A report just issued by the council directs attention to the ‘'alarming fact” that many women infected with venereal disease are married and some have husbands on active service. The council was unable to reach any adequate explanation for Australia's falling birthrate.
Tlie council declared that lack of proper housing acted as a deterrent to the bearing of children. It recommended that, before any Government housing scheme was finalized, close study should be given to house design and equipment to reduce household drudgery to a minimum. It was estimated that Australia’s population would not reach 10,090,000 by natural increase by the end of the century, and thereafter it would decline steadily. In New South Wales births decreased from one baby for every six women of child-bearing age in IS9I to one for every 14 women in 1939.
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Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 7
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192AUSTRALIAN BIRTHS Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 7
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