Mabch 1, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



207 



. The decline in the birth rate in the 

 United States has been, as elsewhere, se- 

 lective in character. In Massachusetts, for 

 example, where the best American data on 

 birth rates are available, we find first that 

 there has been a continuous decrease in the 

 birth rate during the last 40 years and sec- 

 ond, that this decrease has been most 

 marked in the native stock. In 1910 the 

 native stock had a birth rate of 14.9 per 

 thousand; the foreign born birth rate was 

 49.1 per thousand." In the same year the 

 native death rate was 16.3 per thousand, 

 while the foreign death rate was only 15.4.'° 

 There was thus an excess of deaths over 

 births corresponding to a net annual loss 

 of a little more than one tenth of 1 per 

 cent, in the native stock while there was 

 an annual increase of 3.4 per cent, among 

 the foreign born population. 



A tabulation of a significant sample of 

 the population returns for the 1910 census 

 shows similar differences in the fecundity 

 of women of native and foreign parentage.'" 

 In a group of women under forty-five years 

 of age, who were married for a period of 

 from ten to twenty years, the average 

 number of children was found to be 4.1 per 

 married woman. The women of native 

 parentage, however, showed an average of 

 only 2.7 children whereas the women of 

 foreign parentage showed an average of 

 4.4 per married woman. In like manner, 

 it was found that 7.4 per cent, of the 

 women under forty-five years, who had 

 been married ten to twenty years, had borne 

 no children. The women of native parent- 



i« Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Annual Re- 

 port on Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1914, p. 181. 



10 Mortality Statistics, 1910, United States Bu- 

 reau of the Census. 



i« Hill, Joseph A., "Comparative Fecundity of 

 Women of Native and Foreign Parentage in the 

 United States," Quarterly Publications, American 

 Statistical Association, Boston, December, 1913, 

 p. 583. 



age had borne no children in 13 per cent, 

 of the cases, whereas, the women of for- 

 eign parentage had borne no children in 

 only 5.7 per cent, of the cases. In view of 

 the fact that very few children are born to 

 women who have been unproductive for a 

 period of at least ten years, we may con- 

 sider these figures as fairly reliable indices 

 of sterility in the two groups. We find 

 that close to 40 per cent, of the married 

 women of native parentage had borne only 

 one or two children, whereas the women of 

 foreign parentage showed only 19 per cent, 

 of their number in this group. Finally, 

 only about 10 per cent, of the women of 

 native parentage had five children or more 

 whereas 33 per cent, of the women of for- 

 eign parentage belong in this group. 



I hope I am not assuming too much 

 when I infer that these figures show selec- 

 tion in the decline of the birth rate. The 

 race stock which laid the foundations of 

 our institutions during the critical period 

 of our national existence is in large areas 

 of the country no longer maintaining itself 

 and its place is being taken graduallj' but 

 surely by foreign races, which, as we have 

 seen, are reproducing very rapidly. 



Additional evidence of the selective 

 character of the declining birth rate is pre- 

 sented in special studies on the size of fam- 

 ilies of college graduates and of men of 

 science. Thus, Phillips" in his work on 

 the birth rate among graduates of 

 Harvard and Yale universities shows that 

 the number of children born per married 

 graduate has fallen from about 3.25 in the 

 decade 1850 to 1860, to a little over 2 in 

 the decade 1881 to 1890. Similar facts are 

 obsen'cd in the statistics for other college 

 graduates ; but none are so low as those for 

 the graduates of colleges for women. Thus, 



17 PhiUips, John C, " A Study of the Birth Bate 

 in Harvard and Yale Graduates," Harvard Gradu- 

 ates Magazine, Boston, September, 1916, p. 25. 



