514 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



definite progressive fall in the proportion of births after allowing for 

 all differences in the way the populations are made up. If the people 

 of England and Wales had continued during those fifty years to be 

 exactly of the same ages, and to be exactly in the same proportion mar- 

 ried and single, the birth rate per 100,000 of the population would 

 have changed to the following extent: 1861, 3,236; 1871, 3,312; 1881, 

 3,273; 1891, 3,125; 1901, 2,729. That is to say, if the fertility of 

 the married women of equivalent ages had remained the same in 1901 

 as it had been in 1871, there would have been born 3,312 babies per 

 100,000 population, instead of 2,729, or just upon 21 per cent, more, 

 equal in the whole of England and Wales to something like 200,000 

 more than actually saw the light. Why were those 200,000 babies 

 not born? 



2. The decline in the birth rate is not confined to the towns, nor 

 (so far as England and Wales is concerned, at least) is it appreciably, 

 if any, greater in the towns than it is in the rural districts. 



Human fertility may possibly be normally slightly lower in the 

 towns than in the rural districts, and it is sometimes suggested, espe- 

 cially by German authorities, that the fall in the birth rate is to be 

 accounted for by progressive ' urbanization.' But English statistics 

 afford no support to this hypothesis. It is true that the corrected birth 

 rates of the towns of Northampton, Halifax, Burnley and Blackburn 

 fell off between 1881 and 1901 by no less than 32 per cent., and that 

 of London by 16 per cent. But the corrected birth rate of Cornwall 

 fell off by 29 per cent., that of Rutland by 28 per cent., those of Sussex 

 and Devonshire by 26 per cent., and that of Westmorland by 23 per 

 cent. It is no less significant that, whilst the corrected birth rate of 

 all Ireland actually rose during these twenty years by 3 per cent., that 

 of Dublin rose by 9 per cent. If it was the unhealthy environment 

 of our great towns that was causing a reduction in the number of births, 

 we might expect to find Liverpool, Salford, Manchester and Glasgow — 

 cities of extensive overcrowding, fearful slums and high mortality — 

 heading the list. As a matter of fact, the corrected birth rate between 

 1881 and 1901 fell off proportionately less in these cities than in any 

 other town, and actually less in proportion than in all but six of the 

 counties. A decline in the birth rate, which does not appear at all in 

 Dublin, appears much less in Liverpool and Manchester, Salford and 

 Glasgow than in Brighton, and appears far more in Westmorland, Rut- 

 land, Devonshire and Cornwall than in any of those towns, can hardly 

 be due to ' urbanization.' 



On the changes in the marriage and birth rates in England and Wales dur- 

 ing the past half-century; with an inquiry as to their probable causes, by G. 

 Udny Yule, Newmarch Lecturer in Statistics, University College, London. Both 

 these papers will be found in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 

 April, 1906. 



