THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 163 



Mombert from whom the above table is taken states that 

 legitimate fertility in the cities as compared with the land is 

 lower, has declined more rapidly and began to decline earlier. In 

 the large cities (Grosstadte) the fall in the birth rate has been 

 especially rapid. All of the large cities showed a lower corrected 

 birth rate in 1901 than the country. The average children per 

 1,000 married women (15-45 yrs) in cities of 40,000 in 1901 was 

 238 as compared with the rural rate of 337, but this rate was 

 higher than that of most of the larger cities of that year (Berlin, 

 172, Breslau, 234, Frankfurt, 208, Munich, 225, Dresden, 211, 

 Essen, 328, Hamburg, 194, Leipzig, 209). 



Data on urban and rural birth rates are often greatly affected 

 by many factors which tend to obscure the influence of cities 

 per se. Much depends upon the kind of industry in which the 

 city populations are engaged. Manufacturing cities have, as a 

 rule, a higher birth rate than cities which are chiefly engaged in 

 commerce, or which are mainly residential. Often the racial 

 composition of cities differs considerably from that of the sur- 

 rounding country, as is very strikingly illustrated in the United 

 States. To a less extent this is true in Europe where the percen- 

 tage of persons born outside the country is greater in cities, and 

 especially in large cities, than in rural districts. Cities tend to be 

 centers of racial mixtures, whatever this may imply as regards 

 the birth rate and the quality of the offspring of mixed marriages. 

 It is probable that the ratio of males to females would be increased 

 by this circumstance, but what other biological effects would 

 follow is doubtful. Since the inhabitants of cities may differ from 

 those of the surrounding country in race, religion, education and 

 prosperity, peculiar combinations of circumstances may render 

 even the corrected birth rate of cities higher than that of the 

 country. There is abundant evidence, however, that the usual 

 effect of an urban environment is to check the propagation 

 of the race. 



There is little doubt that one factor in the decline of the birth 

 rate is the reduction in infant mortality which has accompanied 

 the fall of the death rate in recent decades. The correlation 



