PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATED BY A BRITISH COMMISSION

Wanganui Chronicle, 21 June 1949, Page 5

PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATED BY A BRITISH COMMISSION

Instruction In Birth Control, Commonwealth Study Of Migration Plans

LONDON, June 19 (Rec. 6 pm).—Britain’s future population prospects, planned “voluntary ” parenthood, and far-reaching-recommendations for controlling Britain’s population, including a Commonwealth examination of migration policies, are exhaustively dealt with in a 100.000-word report of a Royal Commission on Population.

The commission was appointed five years ago to examine facts relating to present population trends in Britain, to investigate causes of these trends and their probable consequences, and to consider measures that should be taken in the national interest to influence population trends.

' The main recommendations support planned families, propose higher children’s allowances and income tax relief for parents, and declare that there is no danger of moving into a world without children, and express the view that a replacement size family is desirable for Britain. The Commission urges planned parenthood, and expert advice on contraception as Britain’s official family policy. “We set out the view that public policy should be based on acceptance of voluntary parenthood, and of contraception as one of the means of achieving it,” says the report. “It is primarily designed to secure that children come when parents want them.” The Commission recommend that giving advice on contraception to married persons who want it should be accepted as a duty of the National Health Service. Restrictions on giving such advice by public authority clinics should be removed. The Commission says it has received no evidence from any quarter that voluntary parenthood was regarded as improper, or that a married woman should conceive as often as “nature” determined. The only evidence on which doubt on this point might arise, was that of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. Those representatives made a distinction between confining intercourse to a period when conception would be unlikelv, and the use of mechanical methods, which they condemned as sinful. Other persons had religious, aesthetic or psychological objections to mechanical or chemical methods, but the general body of evidence showed that a growing proportion of responsible sections of the community saw nothing inherently wrong in them. There was no support for the view of medical representatives of the Roman Catholic Church that mechanical or chemical methods may be harmful, physically or psychologically, and may effect the capacity of women to bear children. The Commission contemplates that with the spread of effective knowledge of contraception “voluntary parenthood will become more or less universal.” ADDED COSTS OF PARENTHOOD. The peculiar and unexpected effect of the great social advances achieved since the 19th century was that they either added to the costs of parenthood or many ways emphasised the handicaps of parents relative to others. This unexpected effect of higher living standards had led some to argue that the higher the standard of living the lower was likely to be the birth rate. This would continue unless higher standards of living were accompanied j by adjustments that would reduce the advantage enjoyed by non-parents over parents, and of children of small! families over those of larger families.! Discussing future prospects, the Commission predicts that over the next 15 years the number of young adults (15 to 39 years) is likely to decline by about 1.400,000, and the number of old people (over 65 years) will prow steadily over the next 30 years by at least 2,300.000. The population of the working age is likely to remain roughly constant for at least 30 years. It seems likely that death rates will fall in the future and the numbers of old people will greatly increase. The Commission predicts that the number of annual births will almost certainly decline over the next 15 years because of an expected fall in marriages of young couples. The total population will probably go on growing for at least one or two decades, though the increase—immigration apart—is not likely to exceed more than a few millions. The Commission considers that the total numbers will reach maximums about 19T7 and thereafter begin a slow decline. The Commission considers that among the inescapable problems presented by the trend of population are the effect on the budget of increased numbers of old people at the same time as numbers in the working age groups are no longer increasing, adjustment of industrial organisation end national policy to the fall in numbers of young adults, and the effects

of other changes in age distribution on housing, education, and other branches of social policy. The expected large increase in the numbers of old people made it desirable that better use should be made of their productive capacity. Examining the desirability of trying to influence the future trend of population, the Commission says the most economic consideration was pressure of population on resources. REVIEW OF MIGRATION The Commission, in a long review of migration, says that the inevitable decline in younger adult age groups in Britain is likely to prove an obstacle to the maintenance of a substantial flow of British migrants to the Dominions after the post-war boom is over. The Commission thinks it is important that the British contribution to further Dominions immigration should be substantial and Aggests that the question should be studied jointly by the Governments of Britain and the Commonwealth. “It must- we think- be accounted a serious disadvantage of having families below replacement level that it makes it less easy to maintain an adequate flow of British settlers to the Dominions and extremely difficult to do so without aggravating the unbalanced age distribution of population which remains behind, - ’ says the Commission.

The capacity of a fully established society like Britain to absorb immigrants of an alien race and religion was limited and a diminishing flow of British emigrants to other areas of the Commonwealth may have serious consequences for the economic and political future of Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole. Even if the average British family was maintained at replacement level, or a little over, it was unlik*y, given good economic conditions in Britain, that emigrants from Britain would amount to more than one-third or one-quarter of the immigrants which the Dominions would need if they wanted to maintain over their pre-war rates of growth. The Commission considers that on present trends the British element in the Commonwealth will tend to diminish.

“This fact presents a problem of vital concern to the whole Commonwealth, and we urge that it should be studied jointly by the Governments of Britain and other Commonwealth countries,” says the report. “This study would bring under review Britain’s economic prospects and political and strategical implications of the use of atomic energy and other developments affecting national defence. These might alter the whole picture, either by greatly increasing the desire to emigrate or by dictating a deliberate policy, however difficult it might be in execution, of redistributing the manpower of the Commonwealth.”

The Commission says that immigra-1 tion apart, it was evident that the size i of the family could not continue per-1 manently below replacement level J without leading to national extinction, i Discussing measures that should be! taken to influence the future trend or population, it says that until recently in process of social advance, the family had been overlooked, or given a minor place in a social policy, the development of which had become lopsided. Expenditure on chilaren’s allowances was reckoned in millions, but upon old-age pensions was reckoned I in hundreds of millions. FAMILY WELFARE PROPOSALS Among the proposals made for initiating a programme of family welfare are:— Increased children’s allowances. i Payment of allowances when pregnancy js established. | Continuance and the development J of wartime nutritional policies favqprjing mothers and children. I Housing priority for families with ! children. i Wide development of sex education I in schools. | Further income tax relief for taxpayers with children. The Commission says that measures to promote family welfare, and particularly to reduce inequalities In material circumstances and prospects between the different sizes of family are fully justified on grounds of equality and social welfare. The public policy should assume and seek to encourage the spread of voluntary parenthood; it should assume also that women would take an increasing part in the cultural and economic life of the community and should endeavour, by adjustment of social and economic arrangements, to make it easier for women to combine motherhood and the care of the home with outside interests.