Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/360

356 sons married among the natives is much smaller than among the foreign born, and the difference is particularly great at the most fruitful periods of life. Thirdly, the proportion of married women that have never had children is much greater among the natives than among the foreign born. It is one fifth among the natives and two fifteenths among foreigners. Fourthly, the birth rate among married women of child bearing age is much larger among foreign born. The figures are 142.47 per mille for natives and 251.76 for foreign born. Finally, an interesting result for our purpose is that for the period under discussion, 1885-1897, the marriage rate and the proportion of married women were decreasing among the natives and increasing among the foreigners. And the refined birth rates were fairly steady for the natives, but increasing for the foreign born.

As to the question of whether the native population is actually keeping up its numbers or not, after showing the paucity of our vital statistics as compared with those of Berlin, Mr. Kuczynski says, "But as the tables of fecundity of Berlin show that, with an annual special birth rate of ten for every hundred women in child-bearing age, in 1891-95, the births were one ninth behind the number necessary to keep the population of Berlin stationary, it is probable that the native population of Massachusetts, with a special birth rate of 6.3 births for every 100 adult women in child bearing age, and a mortality of the female sex not correspondingly lower than that of Berlin, can not only not hold its own, but is dying out at a considerable pace." In studies which I have made upon the population of Boston by nationalities practically the same results were obtained, although there was less opportunity to make a detailed study of the birth rates. The figures for Boston indicate that the negroes and the native whites are failing to keep up their numbers—the former on account of a high death rate and the latter on account of a low birth rate. On the other hand, all the foreign born groups show a natural increase, though the rate of increase varies greatly with the different nationalities. On the whole, the most recently immigrating nationalities have the highest birth rates.

The statistics, although somewhat fragmentary, seem to show that in Massachusetts, and probably also in other sections of the country having similar social conditions, the older part of the population, represented roughly by native Americans, is slowly dying out because of the low birth rate. If this is true the conditions in the older parts of the United States bear a strong resemblance to those in France, except that in the latter country the population as a whole fails to increase, while in this country it is only a section of the population. In the