Part 6 (1/2)

Another reason for the high birth rate of the j.a.panese in California is the high percentage of married people. The rate of married people among the j.a.panese in California suddenly rose since some ten years ago when a great number (between 400 and 900 per annum) of wives began to come in under the popular name, _picture brides_. The ratio maintained between male and female among the j.a.panese in California was one to six ten years ago, but at present, it is one to two.[23] Since it is estimated that there are 16,195 j.a.panese wives in California,[24] it is obvious that there are double that number, or 32,390 married j.a.panese, in California, which means that 46 per cent. of the total population are married. This is apparently a high rate, since it is 17 per cent. in j.a.pan, 36 per cent. in Great Britain, 37 per cent. in Italy. Although exact data is lacking, judging from the fact that only less than a half of California's white population are of ages above twenty-one,[25] it may not be too far-fetched to estimate the percentage of married people at 25 per cent. of the total population.

From the foregoing considerations we can deduce this, that the j.a.panese are mostly at the prime of life, and that the percentage of married people is exceedingly high. Now, in comparing the birth rates of two groups such as those of the j.a.panese and of the Californians in general, a mere comparison of rates without taking into consideration the difference in age distribution and marital conditions is not only useless, but it is absolutely misleading. California has only 20 per cent. of people between the ages of eighteen to forty-four,[26] while the j.a.panese group has 59 per cent.; California has about 25 per cent. or less of married population, including those who have pa.s.sed the fertile period; while the j.a.panese community has 46 per cent. of married population, all of whom are in the zenith of productivity. No wonder, then, that the j.a.panese in California have three times as high a birth rate as that of California as a whole.

There is another factor which accounts for the high birth rate of the j.a.panese. It is the sudden rise of the standard of living. It is an established principle of immigration that when immigrants settle in a new country and attain a much higher standard of living than they were accustomed to at home they tend to multiply very rapidly through high birth rate. Among the European immigrants in this country, a birth rate of fifty per thousand is not rare.[27] In the careful researches made in Rhode Island concerning the fertility of the immigrant population,[28] it was found that their birth rate was invariably high, 72 per cent. of the married women each having upwards of three children, with an average of 4.5 children for each one of them. This fact holds equally good for the j.a.panese immigrants, most of whom came from the poor quarters of the agricultural communities, where not only economic handicaps but customs and social fetters operate to check their multiplication. When, therefore, they come to California, where food is abundant, work easy, climate salubrious, and personal freedom is incomparably greater, they naturally tend to multiply.

What we May Expect in the Future.

We have seen, then, that the high birth rate among the j.a.panese settlers in California is due primarily to the facts that the largest portion of them are in the prime of life; that the percentage of married people is remarkably high, the larger part of them, especially the women, being at the zenith of productivity, and that their standard of living suddenly improves when they settle in California. The question naturally arises as to what will be the future development of j.a.panese nativity. Remembering that a prediction, however scientific, cannot at best be more than a possibility, we shall venture to forecast the future of the j.a.panese birth rate in California.

In doing so, the proper way would be to examine any possible future change in the causes which const.i.tute the present high birth rate. How, then, about the age distribution of the j.a.panese? It has been shown that 59 per cent. of them are between the ages of seventeen and forty, and that 15 per cent. of them are above forty. In other words, 74 per cent. of the j.a.panese are mature, while only 26 per cent. are minors. Now, we are all mortals, and grow old as time pa.s.ses; even the j.a.panese do not have magical power to retain perennial juvenility, as some agitators seem to think. They grow old, the j.a.panese in California, as years come and go, pa.s.sing gradually into the age when childbearing is no longer possible.

Therefore, if fresh immigration is checked, which we have already indicated is desirable, it is manifest that a large portion of the present j.a.panese in California will die out without being reinforced by youths save those who are born in America, and hence are citizens thereof. That this tendency has already set in may be seen from the increase of the death rate among the j.a.panese in California, as the following table indicates:

DEATH RATE OF j.a.pANESE IN CALIFORNIA.

======================== Year.

Number.

Percentage

of Death

per 1000.

-----

-------

---------- 1910

440

10.64% 1911

472

.....

1912

524

.....

1913

613

.....

1914

628

.....

1915

663

.....

1916

739

.....

1917

910

.....

1918

1150

.....