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An Improved Method of calculating Birth-Rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Arthur Newsholme  and
T. H. C. Stevenson
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1. The ordinary method of calculating the birth-rate does not distinguish between the influence of fertility and of variations in conditions of the population as to age and marriage.

2. In ascertaining the true meaning of the great reduction of the birth-rate which has occured in the last 25 years it is necessary to have means for distinguishing between the accidental and the intrinsic causes of change.

3. A step in the right direction is made when the legitimate births are stated in terms of the married women at child-bearing ages, and the illegitimate births in terms of the unmarried women of the same ages.

4. This method fails to correct for the differences of fertility of the various ages comprised in the age-period 15–45.

5. By calculating standard fertility-rates for given populations McLean overcame the above difficulty, and was thus able to compare experiences of a given community at different times with the standard.

6. In this paper it is shown that by continuing the above process and obtaining corrected fertility-rates, the fertility-rates of different communities can be made directly comparable.

7. The inconveniences of this new and unfamiliar method, and the necessity involved in it of calculating the crude as well as the corrected fertility-rate in every instance, indicate the desirability of obtaining a factor for each community which throughout an entire intercensal period can be applied to the crude birth-rate of that community.

8. The desirability of such a factor is increased by the fact that the method of corrected fertility-rates does not take into account the proportion of married women in each population.

9. In this paper a method is described of obtaining factors, which, when applied to the readily available crude birth-rates, correct completely both for the varying proportion of married women in compared populations and for the varying fertility at different periods of married life.

10. The practical bearings of these corrected birth-rates will be discussed in a later paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1905 , pp. 175 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1905

References

page 176 note 1 A Theory of Population deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility. By H. Spencer, 1872.

page 176 note 2 From Newsholme's Elements of Vital Statistics, p. 72, 3rd edit.

page 177 note 1 Quoted from a paper on “The Declining Birth-rate in Australia.”. By W. McLean, Intercol. Med. Journ. of Australasia, Mar, 20, 1904.

page 178 note 1 See Elements of Vital Statistics, p. 66.