U.S. BIRTHRATE RISES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 December 1942, Page 5

U.S. BIRTHRATE RISES

PROSPERITY AND WAR

WASHINGTON, October 1

The Census Bureau reported to-day that, largely as the result of the war, ihe American population increased by 1,327,000 in 1941, bringing the tote I estimated population to

The rising birth rate is attributed to such factors as business prosperity due to war production: anticipation ol being called up for military service, and return of Americans from foreign countries because of the war. With millions of men now .in the armed forces and immigration virtually at a standstill it is not. expected that births will continue to rise at the 1941 rale.

During 1941 the decline in the preponderance of men was maintains:! with the ratio of males per 100 females dropping from 100.7 to 100.1. Another ••hangc in American lite reported by the Census Bureau is that to an increasing extent the children of recent immigrants are being taught English. Nevertheless, when the 1940 census was taken there were still 22,000,000 white people in the country who bad been brought up speaking a foreign language. German was the mother tongue of nearly 5,000.000. About 3,700,000 had been brought up speaking Italian, 2,400,009 Polish. 1,806.000 Spanish, 1.700.090 Yiddish and 1.400,000 French.