Part 8 (1/2)
England ................... 34.0 29.3 28.0 Germany ................... 38.1 35.9 35.2 France .................... 24.6 22.8 20.9
From the above table it is evident that while birth rates and death rates have been declining in all civilized peoples, the decline has been unequal in different peoples. Both England and Germany in the above table show still a good surplus of births over deaths; in the case of England in 1904 this surplus being 11.8 per thousand of the population annually, while in the case of Germany it was 15.6. In the case of France, however, the surplus of births over deaths for a number of years has been very insignificant, and in the year 1907 there were actually about 20,000 more deaths than births in all France (773,969 births against 793,889 deaths). France's population has, therefore, been practically stationary for a number of years, while within the last year or two it seems to be actually declining.
The causes of the stationary population of France are probably mainly economic, although all the factors which influence the family life in any degree must also influence birth rate. For a number of years the economic conditions of France have not been favorable to the growth of a large population, and at the same time the law necessitating the equal division of the family's property among children has tended to encourage small families. Unquestionably, however, other factors of a more general social or moral nature are also at work in France as well as in all other populations that are decreasing in numbers.
_The Decrease in the Native White Stock in the United States._ Certain cla.s.ses in the United States also show a very slight surplus of births over deaths and in some cases absolutely declining numbers. In general the United States Census statistics seem to indicate that the native white stock in the Northern states is not keeping up its numbers.
This is suggested by the decreasing size of the average family in the United States. The average size of the family in the United States in 1850 was 5.6 persons; in 1860, 5.3; in 1870, 5.1; in 1880, 5.0; in 1890, 4.9; and in 1900, 4.7. Moreover, if we include only private families in 1900, the average size of the family was only 4.6. Thus, between 1850 and 1900 the size of the average family in the United States decreased by nearly one full person. This decrease is most evident in the North Atlantic and North Central states. In Maine, Vermont, and New Hamps.h.i.+re, for example, the average size of the family in 1900 was 4.1 persons.
Moreover, the vital statistics kept by the state of Ma.s.sachusetts for a number of years show conclusively that the native white stock in that state is tending to die out. In 1896, for example, in Ma.s.sachusetts the native born had a birth rate of only 16.58, while the foreign born had a birth rate of 50.40. Again, the following table of birth rates and death rates for 1890 in the city of Boston [Footnote: Taken from Bushee's _Ethnic Factors in the Population of Boston_, Publications American Economic a.s.sociation, Vol. IV., No, 2, 1903.] for the native born and sections of the foreign born shows conclusively that the native-born element is not keeping up its numbers:
Birth Rate Death Rate
Native born ..................... 16.40 17.20 Irish ........................... 45.60 25.20 Germans ......................... 48.00 15.00 Russian Jews .................... 94.60 15.90 Italians ........................ 104.60 25.30
It is evident from this table that the foreign born are increasing in Boston very rapidly in numbers through birth, while the native born are apparently not even holding their own. The high birth rate of the foreign born is, of course, in part to be explained through the fact that the foreign-born population is made up for the most part of individuals in the prime of life, that is, in the reproductive age.
Nevertheless, while this explains the excessively high birth rate of some of these foreign elements, it does not explain the great discrepancy between their birth rate and that of the native born. If the present tendencies continue, it is apparently not difficult to foresee a time in the not very distant future when the old Puritan New England families will be replaced in the population of Boston entirely by the descendants of recent immigrants.
Moreover, so far as vital statistics concerning different cla.s.ses can be gathered in the northern tier of the states, practically everywhere the same tendencies are manifest, that is, everywhere we find the native-born white population failing to hold its own alongside of the more recent immigrants. Apparently, therefore, we must conclude that the birth rate in the native whites in the United States is declining to such an extent that that element in our population threatens to become extinct if present tendencies continue. Only the Southern whites present an exception to this generalization. The Southern white people, from various causes not well understood,--partially, perhaps, from family pride, partially, perhaps, from racial instinct, but even more probably on account of certain economic conditions,--keep up their numbers, increasing more rapidly even than the negro population which exists alongside of them.
_Causes of the Decrease in Birth Rate in the Native White Stock in the United States._ What, then, are the causes of this decrease in the birth rate of the native white stock in the United States? It is worth our while to inquire briefly into these causes, for they ill.u.s.trate the factors which are at work in favoring or deterring the growth of population.
(1) Economic conditions are without doubt mainly at the bottom of the decreasing birth rate in the native white American population. Certain unfavorable economic conditions have developed in this country of recent years for this particular element; especially have higher standards of living increased among the native white population in the United States more rapidly than their income. This has led to later marriages and smaller families. Again, more intense compet.i.tion along all lines has forced certain elements of the native stock into occupations where wages are low in comparison with the standard of living. This has, perhaps, especially come about through the increased compet.i.tion which the foreign born have offered to the native white element. The foreign born have taken rapidly all the places which might be filled by unskilled labor and many of the places filled by skilled labor. The native born have shrunk from this compet.i.tion and have retired for the most part to the more socially honorable occupations, such as clerks.h.i.+ps in business, the professions, and the like. In many of these occupations, however, as we have already said, the wages are low as compared with the standards of living maintained by that particular occupational cla.s.s; hence, as we have already said, later marriages and fewer children. Rising standards of living and rising costs of living have, therefore, impinged more heavily upon the native born than upon the foreign born. It is difficult to suggest a remedy for this condition of affairs. No legislator can devise means of encouraging a cla.s.s to have large families when by so doing that cla.s.s would necessarily have to sacrifice some of its standards of living. However, it may be that the native born can be protected to some extent from the compet.i.tion of the foreign born through reasonable restrictions upon immigration, and it may also be that unreasonable advances in standards of living may be checked, but both of these propositions seem to be of somewhat doubtful nature.
(2) No doubt the pressure of economic conditions is not responsible for small families in some elements of the native white population in the United States, for oftentimes the smallest families are found among the wealthy, among whom there could be no danger of a large family lowering the standards of living or pressing upon other economic needs. We must accept as a second factor in the situation, therefore, the inherent selfishness in human nature which is not willing to be burdened with the care of children. In other countries, and apparently in all ages, the wealthy have been characterized by smaller families than the poor. The following table from Bertillon, [Footnote: Quoted by Newsholme, Vital Statistics, p. 75.] showing the number of births per thousand women between fifteen and fifty years of age in Paris, Berlin, and London among the various economic cla.s.ses, shows conclusively that it is not altogether the pressure of economic wants which leads to the limiting of a population:
BIRTHS PER THOUSAND WOMEN PER ANNUM
Paris Berlin London.
Very poor ....... 108 157 147 Poor ............ 95 129 140 Comfortable ..... 72 114 107 Rich ............ 53 63 87 Very rich ....... 34 47 63
(3) Besides economic conditions and individual selfishness we must unfortunately add another cause of decreasing birth rate in our population which has been definitely ascertained, and that is vice. Vice cuts the birth rate chiefly through the diseases which accompany it.
About 20 per cent of American marriages are childless, and medical authorities state that in one half of these childless marriages the barrenness is due to venereal diseases. According to Dr. Prince A.
Morrow, in his _Social Diseases and Marriage_, 75 per cent of the young men in the United States become impure before marriage. This serves to disseminate venereal diseases among the general population, especially among innocent women and children. The consequence is, on the one hand, a considerable number of sterile marriages and on the other hand a high infant mortality. It need not be a.s.sumed, as we have already said, that vice is more prevalent to-day than in previous generations, but on account of the conditions of our social life diseases which accompany vice are now more widely disseminated than they have been at any time in our previous history; therefore, even the physical results of vice are different to-day than they were a generation or more ago.
(4) Education has been alleged as a cause of decreasing birth rate in the native white American stock. This, however, is true only in a very qualified sense. While it is a fact, as collected statistics have shown, that if Harvard and other universities depended on children of their alumni for students their attendance would actually decrease in numbers, it is not true that college graduates have had a lower birth rate than the economic and social cla.s.ses to which they belong. So far as statistics have been collected, indeed, they seem to indicate that the wealthy uneducated are producing fewer children than the educated cla.s.ses who a.s.sociate with them. The influence decreasing the birth rate among the educated is, therefore, not education itself, but the high standards of living and the luxury of the cla.s.ses with whom they a.s.sociate.
On the other hand, the higher education of women seems to be, down to the present time, operating as a distinct influence to lessen the birth rate among the educated cla.s.ses for the reason that apparently a majority of educated women do not marry. The higher education has not yet gone far enough, however, to give us any definite facts with which to judge what the ultimate effect of woman's higher education will be.
If the higher education of woman is going to lead to a large per cent of the best and most intellectual women in society leading lives of celibacy, then, of course, ultimately the higher education of woman will be disastrous to the race. But probably the relative infrequency of marriage among women who are college graduates is a transitory phenomenon due to the fact that neither women nor men are as yet adjusted to the higher education of women.
(5) Some phases of the ”woman's movement” have without doubt tended to lessen the birth rate in certain sections of American society. Some of the leaders of the woman's movement have advocated, for example, that women should choose a single life, while others have advocated that families should not have more than two children. Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, indeed, has gone so far as to claim that if families would have but two children this would be a cure-all for many social troubles. Indeed, this ideal of two children in the family has been so widely disseminated in this country that it is often spoken of as the ”American Idea.” Of course, such teachings could not be without some effect. Without attempting to reply to the advocates of this theory of but two children to a family, it will be sufficient to remark that for a population simply to remain stationary three children at least must be born to each family on the average; otherwise, if only two children are born, as one of the children is apt to die or fail to marry, the population will actually decrease in numbers. Under the best modern conditions one out of three children now born either fails to live to maturity or fails to reproduce. There must be, therefore, more than three children born to the average family for a population to grow. From the sociological point of view the ideal family would seem to be one in which from three to six children are born.
(6) Finally, not all of the childless and small families in the native American stock are due by any means to voluntary causes, or even involuntary causes of the kind that we have mentioned. There are also certain other obscure physiological causes at work producing sterility in American women. The sterility of American women is greater than that of any other civilized population, even apart from the causes which have just been mentioned. Some say this is due to physical deterioration in the native white American stock, and there are other things which seem to point in that direction. It may be, however, that this deterioration is in no sense racial, but only individual, affecting certain individuals who lead a relatively unnatural life. Our American civilization puts a great strain upon certain elements of our population, and this strain in many cases falls even more upon the women than upon the men. The social life of the American people, in other words, is oftentimes such as to produce exhaustion and physical degeneracy, and this shows itself in the women of a population first of all in sterility. It is evident that the remedy for this cause is a more natural and more simple life on the part of all, if it is possible to bring this about.
Thus, the causes which influence birth rate are evidently very complex.
In the main they are doubtless economic causes among all peoples, but there is no reason to believe that these economic causes act alone in determining birth rate, nor is there any reason to believe that the other psychological and biological causes may be in any way derived from the economic. So far as we can see, then, industrial conditions are mainly responsible for the lessened birth rate in the native white American stock. But mingled with these industrial conditions, operating as causes, are certain psychological (or moral) and biological factors that have to be considered as in the main independent. It is furthermore evident that the causes which lead to the decline and extinction of any population, whether civilized or uncivilized, are complex. All efforts to explain the extinction of peoples of antiquity, or modern nature peoples, such as the North American Indians and the Polynesians, through any single set of causes, must be looked at as unscientific. It can readily be shown that in all these cases the causes of the decline of the birth rate and the ultimate extinction of the stock are numerous and are not reducible to any single set of causes.
_Causes which Influence the Death Rate._ Before we can fully understand the causes of the growth of a population, that is, of the surplus of births over deaths, we must understand something also about the things which influence the death rate as well as the things which influence the birth rate, because, let it be borne in mind, the growth of a given population (excluding immigration always) is due to the combined working of these two factors.