THE POPULATION PROBLEM: II. IN OTHER COUNTRIES
By D. V. GLASS*
IN his article in last week's Spectator Dr. Blacker pointed out that present fertility rates are not high enough to maintain our population, and that, in consequence, we may soon have to consider what measures can be taken to prevent the population from tobogganing downhill. A useful first step will be to consider the measures other countries have adopted to that end, and. see what we can learn from them.
In France and Belgium the measures used are largely indirect, in the sense that they were not devised primarily with a view to raising the marriage and birth rates. Family allowances, the main weapons in the campaign in those two countries, were introduced not for the purpose of keeping up the population but to produce a more equitable distribution of income between childless workers and those with large families to maintain. In recent years more direct measures have been added. There are, for example, rebates on and exemptions from taxation in the • interests of large families, birth and suckling premiums, and preferential treatment in housing and transport, as well as repressive measures—largely unsuccessful—designed to prevent the. increasing use of contraception. The additional measures have been, so to speak, "tacked on" to the family allowances to produce a system increasingly directed towards the encouragement of large families.
• In Germany and Italy the measures were, from the start, bound up with a pro-population policy, and are consequently more direct. In both countries a Wide range is covered, including, in the case of Gerniany, marriage loans, tax reductions in favour of large families, discriminations against bachelors and childless couples, and settlement schemes for transferring sections of the town population to the country. In Italy, where the campaign began in 1926 (six years earlier than in Germany), the range covered is even wider. In addition to anti-birth-control laws and the usual forms' of discrimination against the childless,- there is also a campaign for reducing the infliie'nee • of urbanism and for rehabilitating agriculture. • Both Germany and Italy have now introduced family allowances; though by *Mr. Glass is Research Secretary of the Population Investigation Committee.
comparison with .France and Belgiuni the systems arc somewhat rudimentary: • The upshot of it all is that in France,- Belgium and Italy there appears to have been no check to the declining birth-rate. The most that could be said of the measures is that without them the drop might have been even more marked, and this is small consolation, especially for France, where the population-total has already begun to decline. Only in Germany were the measures followed by any noticeable .results. In. that country marriages rose from 509,591 in 1932, to 630,826 in 1933, and 731,431 in 1934. Births fell at first from 978,161 in 1932, to 956,915 in 1983, but they rose to 1,181,179 in 1934.
When considering the •rise in Germany, a number of important points have to be remembered. It is certain that the marriages were helped by the new loans. After all, a loan of 1,000 Rm., interest free, to be repaid in small instalments over a period of eight years, must be an attraction to a large section of the population. In so far as it helps to speed up marriages, it may have a twofold effect on births. .It may. speed up first births, so that they occur earlier in the lifetime of parents than they .would otherwise. This would not, of course, necessarily mean a greater total number of births per family. Also, by making marriage considerably less difficult, it may provide a real increase of births by reducing the number of abortions. In other words, unmarried women who find themselves pregnant may be able to marry and bear legitimate children, instead of being induced to have abortions. The second aspect of this increase in births was no doubt strengthened by the new stringency with which the . existing abortion law was enforced, and by the " purging " of' the medical profession to confine it to doctors whose ideas on the subject of the, family were . in line, with those of the National Socialist officials.
It must at the same time be realised that Germany, more than any other European country, had suffered a marked decline in marriages and births during the depression. Compared with what would have been expected from a population of its particular size and age- composition, there was, by the end of 1932, a deficit of some 330,000 marriages. It is thus fairly certain that in 1933 and 1934, even without marriage loans, part of ,the deficit would have been made up by people who were not prepared to put off their marriages any longer. Thus there would in any case have been some rise in the number of first births, and possibly of second births, too.
But these are not the only births that matter. Even if every woman bore two children during her lifetime, that would not be enough to maintain the population. When, moreover, we take into account not only the prevailing death rates but also, the number of unmarried women and of married women with no children, it is evident that the maintenance of a stable population requires a large number of families with four and more children. Recent statistics for the nine major States of Germany do show an increase in these later births, but it is relatively small, and much more likely to have been produced as a short period result of the strict application of the abortion law than as a response to the new national ideals. The statistics .of the nine States referred to show an increase of 206,703. births in 1934 as compared with 1933. But of this total increase, 152,400 births—or nearly three quarters—came from first and second births. Such results do not make it at all certain that the upward trend in Germany is likely to be permanent or adequate, especially as the marriage loans—the main weapon in the campaign—are to be discontinued by the end of 1938.
Examination o the various measures which have been adopted by France, Belgium, Germany and Italy does not disclose any of which certain success could be pre- dicted if they were to be applied in this country. That is not so. surprising as it might appear. In the first place, apart from the German marriage loans, the measures have net, individually, given parents much inducement to have larger. families. The family allowances given in France and Belgium are the most substantial of the aids offered by European countries, but they are only on a very modest scale. The average allowance for a child conies to not more than 4 or 5 per cent. of the worker's basic wage. Assuming that the average wage is sufficient to main- tain a man and wife, and that a child costs about 22 per cent. of that, it is evident that the typical family allow- ance in France and Belgium is no very strong induce- ment to parents to increase their families.
. Secondly, none of the measures applied really strikes at the root of the problem. Briefly, the decline of fertility is largely the result of the change in the nature of the family in the last sixty years, a change brought about by two main factors.. First, the State and other institutions have taken away many of the family's functions—and advisedly—since the family was by no means expert in performing them. Secondly, and most. important, educe- tion—both formal and through advertising—has taught people to aim at a higher standard of life. But in our particular civilisation the demands for large families and a high standard of life are generally incompatible. The remedy is not, however—as is implied in the suggestion that what we really need is a change in the attitude to marriage and the family—to lower the standard of life in order to raise the size of the family. The chief feature of any .movement to increase fertility must, on the contrary, be a guarantee that the large family shall have a standard at least as high as that of the childless. It may, in fact, be necessary to give the large family an even higher real income. After all, if the State is to have the right to demand children, parents must have a corresponding right to dictate the terms on which those children shall be produced.
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