| OCR Text |
Show : MEDIAN AGE OF PEOPLE. . . A census bulletin just issued,- presenting and discussing the age statistics of. the United States, brings 'out important facts and makes valuable deductions de-ductions from them. These are the more entitled to' serious consideration because the ages of the population of the continental United States were ascertained more accurately .in 11)00 than in any previous census. It appears that the median age of the aggregate population, that is, the age which exactly divides the population into halves, was 22.85 years at the opening of the twentieth century. In 1600 the median age was-determined at 13.97, and since 1820 it has increased on the average by two-thirds Of a year each decade. In cities of over 23,006 inhabitants inhabit-ants the median age is 'about three and a half years higher than that in smaller communities and rural districts. It is high in Xorth Atlantic and western states and low in South Atlanticand Soulh Central states, while in the Xorth Central states it approximates approxi-mates that of the country as a whole. The average age for the whole population in 15)00 was slightly higher than the median age, or 26.2 years. Three-fifths of the population of the Union on this continent were in the "productive age group" that is, between the ages of 15 and tiO. This is a larger percentage of the population than is found in the same group in European countries. The rea--son for it. is explained to be the presence in tins country of large numbers of foreign-born adults. Among the natives of the United States the showing show-ing is very different. Only Holland and the Scandinavian Scan-dinavian countries have so small a proportion of their population in the "productive age group" as is found in tlw native white population of this country. The number of centenarians reported, "grossly exaggerated in the returns," according to the Bulletin, Bul-letin, is particularly exaggerated among illiterates. Except among persons of advanced years, however, the tendency was toward understatement of age rather than exaggeration. Ainong the negroes this tendency was strongest, and it was more marked among foreign-born than native whites. |
