TEE DECLINING BIRTH BATE. 355 



THE DECLIXING BIRTH RATE AND ITS CAUSE. 



By FREDERICK A. BUSHEE, Ph.D., 



CLAKK COLLEGE. 



TN the May number of The Popular Science Monthly Professor 

 -*- Thorndike discusses the question of the low birth rate among 

 college graduates, presenting statistics from New York University, 

 Middlebury College, and Wesleyan University, which confirm the report 

 of President Eliot of Harvard University. These statistics show pretty 

 conclusively that the birth rate among families of college graduates, at 

 least in the east, is not large enough to keep up their numbers, and the 

 question at once arises whether this tendency is confined to the intel- 

 lectual classes or whether it applies to others as well. In either case it 

 is of the utmost importance to understand the cause of the phenomenon. 

 Let us consider then, first, the evidence of a low birth rate outside the 

 circle of college graduates, and, secondly, let us consider the possible 

 causes of a low birth rate. 



The evidence concerning the natural increase of the population in 

 this country is exceedingly meager. In the first place comparatively 

 little attention has been given to the question here, because we have 

 come to think that, though it is a question which France has to wrestle 

 with, it has nothing to do with a new coimtry like the United States. 

 Again, owing to the different conditions existing in different districts, 

 and to the different social conditions in the same district, a solution 

 of the question would require detailed statistics which are not avail- 

 able for any large area of the United States. Very fair results may be 

 obtained, however, by studying the population of a single state or city 

 along national lines. The results which have already been obtained 

 by this method in Massachusetts throw considerable light upon the 

 question of the natural increase of our population. 



Mr. Kucz}Tiski, a Washington statistician, has made an exhaustive 

 study of the statistics of Massachusetts and has concluded that the native 

 population of Massachusetts is dying out.* His study extends over the 

 period from 1885 to 1897. He shows, first, that the marriage rate 

 among the natives is much smaller than among the foreign born for all 

 ages up to 45. The marriage rate of unmarried males, 15 years of age 

 and older, is, native born, 47.7; foreign born, 68.9; and for females, 

 native born, 40, foreign born, 56.8. Secondly, the proportion of per- 

 * Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1901, February, 1902. 



