Births, Marriages and Deaths
The birth-rate, according to the figures of the Registrar-General,. has riSth considerably during the last two years of war, and that for 1943 was • the highest recorded since 1928. The returns give for the first time approximate reproduction rates for each of the last ten years, expressed in the inverse ratio, of the number of girl babies born in a given year to the number of girls who will subse- quently be born from them if the same rate of reproduction holds. The reproduction rate in the seven years before the war varied between .764 and .8io. It had risen in 1943 to .903. If the recent rate of increase went a little farther the tendency of the population to decline would have been arrested. Unfortunately, there is nothing to show that this increased rate of fertility is more than a result of the phase of the war which began in I942. A second fact which must be noted in the returns is that the illegitimacy rate among live births was 16 per t,000 above the average for the preceding five years. This is a bare statistical fact which conceals as much as it discloses. It merely indicates one aspect of the tragedy of thou- sands of very young girls who, removed under war conditions from the influence of home and parents, have been tempted to promis- cuous living, have had babies long before they were mature for child- bearing, and have even, in a disturbing number of cases, contracted venereal disease. This is one of the grimmest aspects of the war for which at present no solution has been found, now partially reflcted in the quarterly returns of births.
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