| THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE AND ITS CAUSE. |
By FREDERICK A. BUSHEE, Ph.D.,
CLARK COLLEGE.
IN 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 intellectual 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 country 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 available 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. Kuczynski, 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.[1] 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.
