LOWEST EVER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 210, 18 August 1933, Page 7

LOWEST EVER

N.Z. BIRTHRATE CONTRAST WITH PIONEERS. EFFECTS OF THE WAR. Figures which are not very reassuring to a growing nation are given in the Government Statistician’s review of the Dominion’s vital statistics for the year 1932. It is shown that compared with the pioneering days of 50 years ago, the birth-rate has declined to less than half, and, as expressed in the report, “If the rate obtaining in 1883 had been recorded in 1932, on the present population, there would have been approximately 52,800 children born in the Dominion during 1932, instead of only 24,884.” New Zealand’s birth-rate is down to 17.09 per 1000 of mean population, a record m its smallness, and it dropped by 7 per cent, compared with the previous year. The birtli-rate has shown a continuous decline since 1920. No comprehensive discussion of the causes of decline in births is attempted in the report, though it is mentioned that the considerable decrease compared with the year 1912 is largely accounted for by the loss of young men in the war, and to a lesser extent by the influenza epidemic. The figures, it is suggested, also reflect to a certain extent the modern tendency towards small families. As a strong contrasting point, the Maori birth-rate, which last yeai was 39.28 per 1000, is quoted, and successive years show a constantly higher rate among Maoris, phenomenally so for 1932. At the other end of life’s scale the position is more reassuring, for the 1932 record of deaths is much more satisfactory than in the previous year It came down to 8.02 per 1000 population (total deaths 1,683), a decrease of 0.32 per 1000. It is pointed out that the absence in 1932 of any disaster such as the Hawke’s Bay earthquake accounts in no.small measure for tho comparatively large drop in the number of deaths registered last year. Even so, adds the statistician, there still remains an appreciable natural decline, sufficient to bring the deathrate down to the lowest level on record.