LOW BIRTH-RATE ENDANGERS THE FUTURE OF BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 May 1948, Page 5

LOW BIRTH-RATE ENDANGERS THE FUTURE OF BRITAIN

Campaign To Foster Larger Families; Importance Of Home Life

(Special Correspondent—N.Z.P.A.) Received 7.5 p.m. LONDON, May 3 Britain is faced with the danger of passing from demographic, maturity into senility, says Political and Economic Planning (“Pep”) in a report on a population policy.

it continues: mere is no prospect of or need for a population increase in Britain. Unless the birth rate is kept up there is some prospect of a 'low decline. But within the limits of likely change the size of Britain’s population is not of great importance. What matters are the steady increase in the ranks of the elderly and old and the depletion of the younger and most adaptable working age groups. Selective immigration from Europe is a useful secondary means of correcting an unhealthy balance of ages. It will be needed in any event to complement the moderate flow of British emigrants to the Dominions which Political and Economic Planning favours. But the disease of demographic senility cannot be averted without a somewhat higher birth-rate than between the wars. On an average there is need for two and a-half children a family, so that the proportion of families with three, four or five children will need to be substantially increased. This enlargement has to be secured by voluntary means. “Pep” advocates a policy for making the most of the population Britain already has and for research and wel-

fare facilities to secure that defective children are not born, that family life is stable and sensibly planned, and that remedial childlessness is not left untreated. To “clear the way for larger families, “Pep” holds that there should be neither special inducements, nor pressure, on women to combine employment and motherhood, or to choose between the two. A plea is made for an extension of all kinds of facilities to enable parents to rear families without having to forego reasonable rest and leisure. In the second half of the 20th century Pep expects the population in most of the white nations outside the “iron curtains,” in Europe and in North America and the Dominions will become stationary. In South American and in Soviet Union and associated nations it will continue to grow, though tending towards a stationary position. The backward regions of Asia will become increasingly crowded. The advent of stationary numbers affords a magnificent opportunity, at least in Europe, of greatly improving standards of well-being, but the opportunity will be wasted if the process which is bringing the population growth to an end cannot be checked before the stationariness gives way to decline.