Abstract
IT would seem that the daily press is beginning to regard the facts and figures issued periodically by the Registrar-General as good copy. In any event, increasing prominence is given to them, and headlines direct our attention to a further fall in the birth-rate. But comment is withheld; the fall is not applauded. Presumably it is supposed that national prestige and numbers are somehow linked together, and that therefore a diminution in the number of Englishmen in the next generation cannot be a matter for congratulation. On the other hand, the fall is not bemoaned. We all know that there are more than a million unemployed. It is worth remarking that in pro-War days we knew only the percentage of the unemployed among a very small proportion of the wage earners. For a short time in 1857, 1879, and 1886, more than 10 per cent of them were unemployed, while the normal figure was nearer 5 per cent. But 10 per cent may not sound alarming. There are at present more than 11 per cent unemployed, and, if we still thought in percentages instead of in totals, the employment position would not seem so bad and the fall in the birth-rate might be a matter for unfavourable comment. (This should not be read as implying that the seriousness of the unemployment phenomenon is exaggerated; but it is its chronic nature rather than its amount which is unexampled.) We are now growing accustomed even to these huge figures, and there is perhaps some reason to think that we are on the verge of plunging into a population panic and are held back only by our realisation of the magnitude of unemployment. One day a further fall in the birth-rate may be greeted by panic headlines in the press. Meanwhile, the position seems to be that unemployment is functioning as an anæsthetic while birth control gains firmer hold.
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C.-S., A. Population Problems. Nature 122, 985–987 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122985a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122985a0