THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 171 
A very illuminating study of the problem has been made by 
Miss Elderton in her Report on the English Birth Rate. As the 
conditions portrayed are quite typical for industrial communities 
in this country as well as England, and probably other countries 
also, it will be of interest to quote rather extensively from this 
report. Speaking of the city of York, Miss Elderton says, “‘ Pre- 
ventive measures appear to be largely used by nearly all sections 
of the population in York, although some of our correspondents 
are not acquainted with the sale of preventatives in public places. 
One correspondent finds the source of the falling birth rate not in 
economic depression, but in the rapid growth of prosperity among 
the working classes in York, and in particular in the exceptional 
opportunities for the remunerative employment of unmarried 
women. These unmarried women—often several in one home, 
earning good wages—connote that the standard of home comforts 
is a high one. When these women marry, they will not put up 
with large families and the resulting poverty, incessant toil and 
drudgery; if they have any knowledge at all of the means of 
prevention, they check births. This correspondent does not 
think there is a large recourse to methods of abortion, but that 
there is greater acquaintance with methods for preventing con- 
ception. Indirectly, therefore, the employment of women, it is 
suggested, has raised the standard of living and lowered the 
birth rate. A second correspondent finds that preventives are 
used more freely in the upper classes of York society, the county 
and military sets, and to a somewhat lesser extent in the middle 
and lower middle classes. In the artisan classes means of preven- 
tion are not so often adopted, but if pregnancy does occur aborti- 
facients are resorted to. The poorest classes of all, those who 
cannot provide for themselves, but seek public dispensaries and 
maternity charities for attendance, do not appear to limit their 
families, for very many have large families running up to thirteen 
ormore. It is clear, however, that if certain members of this class 
used preventives, they would not come under observation to the 
same extent as the normally fertile. .. . The upper classes do 
not as a rule come under the chemist’s observation, they order 
