Show Births Reveal World Decline Population Growth Due to Drop in Mortality Year YearBook YearBook YearBook Book Finds GENEVA Although Although the worlds world's population at the end of ot 1937 1937 esti esti estimated mated at was wu was greater than at al the end nd of the previous year yar the 39 1938 edition of the League ot of Nations Statistics Statistical Year Book discloses that thaI birth rates are declining In almost every coun coun- try The Increase of ot population in the face of declining birth rates Is ascribed ascribed as as- by statisticians to lo the very substantial decrease In mortality rates resulting from scientific and hygienic improvements Nevertheless less the they admit that If it the present trend continues the world may well be faced In the not too distant future with a shrinkage shrink shrink- age in population England El Faces a Decline According to present trends trend the Year Book Dook discloses England and Wales are faced with a I decline In population of approximately 22 per percent percent percent cent In the next 30 years Even if U none of their Inhabitants was to die before the age of the decline would still slip be about 12 per cent Figures for or the United States are more difficult to lo compute owing to the fact that in many sections of the countr country birth and death records were not kept before the war However How ever the tables table show that fertility rates there are no longer quite sufficient suf aut to maintain the population at Its present figure and unless the difference Is offset by Immigration or some other compensatory factor the United States population will decline de de' cline dine about 5 per cent In the next 30 years Germany despite the efforts she he has made to Increase her population lion tion has not succeeded in reaching prewar war levels the Year Book shows In the period 1911 13 births In Germany averaged per 1000 population By Dy 1933 they had de declined de- de dined to 14 7 per 1000 Since then the downward trend has been re reo versed But Dut in 1938 the average still Ull was only per 1000 Italy's Effort L. L Less Successful Italy's efforts have been even less leu successful The number of births in that countr country averaged in 1911 13 13 per 1000 population By Dy 1936 1938 the average had dropped to lo per 1000 Here too the trend was reversed But 1938 figure figures I showed only per 1000 Even in Japan despite the cult of the family the birth rate declined declined de do- dined from per 1000 in the period 1911 13 to per 1000 In 1938 The decline in the United States for the same period was from per 1000 In the period 1911 13 to In 1938 in the United Kingdom from 24 3 to 15 5 In France from 18 1 to There has been much talk of the declining birthrate InI In hi France but statisticians say lay conditions conditions conditions con con- there are not nol so bad as Inthe in inthe inthe I the United Kingdom Switzerland or Norway France they explain was among the first countries to show a decline whereas the others are living for tor the present on human capital inherited from past genera tlona The drop in mortality rates in recent recent re re- cent years has been so great in most of the countries of ot the world statisticians statis I say as to constitute virtually a demographic revolution For Instance between the period 25 1921 and 1938 Infant mortality In Germany Germany Ger many declined 62 per cent in the United States and the United Kingdom King dom dam 23 per cent in France 29 per percent percent percent cent and in Italy 17 per cent |