Page:EB1911 - Volume 22.djvu/107

which has since been held to be the 263rd in the series. It is not proposed to deal here with incidents appertaining to the “ante-natal gloom,” and we are concerned only with human beings when once they have been born. In regard to the division of these into male and female, the first point to be noted is that, in all communities of western civilization, more boys are born than girls. The excess ranges from 20 to 60 per thousand. In Greece and Rumania it is exceptionally high, and in some Oriental or semi-Oriental countries it is said to give place to a deficit, though in the latter case the returns are probably not trustworthy. From the more accurate statistics available it appears that the excess of male births varies amongst different races and also at different times in the same community. It is high in new colonies and amongst the Latin races, with the exception of the French. These, with the English, show a much smaller excess of boy-births than the average of western Europe, and the proportion, moreover, seems to be somewhat declining in both these countries and in Belgium, from causes which have not yet been ascertained. As the mortality amongst boys, especially during the first year, is considerably above that of the other sex, numerical equilibrium between the two is established in early youth, and in most cases girls outnumber boys, except for a few years between twelve and sixteen. Then follows the chequered period of the prime of life and middle age, during which the liability of men to industrial accidents, war and other causes of special mortality, irrespective of their greater inclination to emigrate, is generally sufficient to outweigh the dangers of childbirth or premature decay among the women, who tend, accordingly, to predominate in number at this stage. In old age, again, their vitality rises superior to that of the men, and they continue to form the majority of the community. The general results are an excess of females over males throughout western Europe: but though the relative proportions vary from time to time, remaining always in favour of what is conventionally called the weaker sex, it is impossible, owing to disturbing factors like war and migration, to ascertain whether there is any general tendency for the proportion of females to increase or not. In comparatively new settlements, largely fed by immigration, the number of males is obviously likely to be greater than that of females, but in the case of countries in Asia and eastern Europe in which also a considerable deficiency of the latter sex is indicated by the returns, it is probable that the strict seclusion imposed by convention on women and the consequent reticence regarding them on the part of the householders answering the official inquiry tend towards a short count. On the other hand, the lower position there assigned to women and the very considerable amount of hard work exacted from them, may cause them to wear out earlier than under higher conditions, though not to the extent implied in the statistics. In the following table the latest available information on this head is given for representative countries of western and eastern Europe, the East and the New World.

Table II.

Country.		No. of females to 1000 males.	No. of girls born to 1000 boys.	Country.		No. of females to 1000 males.	No. of girls born to 1000 boys.
${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	Sweden	1049	946	${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	Galicia	1019	941
	Norway	1064	944		Hungary	1009	949
	Finland	1022	948		Rumania	964	902
	Denmark	1053	950		Greece	921	879
${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	England	1069	966		Servia	946	945
	Scotland	1057	956		Bulgaria	959	927
	Ireland	1028	946		Russia
${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	Holland	1025	950		(Europe)	1011	948
	Belgium	1013	956	${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	Russia (Asia)	893	—
	Germany	1029	950		Japan	983	—
	Austria	1042	947		India	963	—
${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	France	1033	960		Egypt	967	—
	Italy	1011	947	${\displaystyle \scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}}$	United States	958	—
	Spain	1049	938		Canada	952	—
	Portugal	1093	899		Argentine	893	—
					Cape Colony	977	—
					Australia	906	950
					New Zealand	900	—

Distribution by Age.—Few facts are more uncertain about an individual than the number of years he will live. Few, on the contrary, as was pointed out by C. Babbage, are less subject to fluctuation than the duration of life amongst people taken in large aggregates. The age-constitution of a community does indeed vary, and to a considerable extent, in course of time, but the changes are usually gradual, and often spread over a generation or more. At the same time, it must be admitted that those which have recently taken place amongst most of the communities of western Europe are remarkable for both their rapidity and their extent; and are probably attributable, in part at least, to influences which were almost inoperative at the time when Babbage wrote. The distribution of a population amongst the different periods of life is regulated, in normal circumstances, by the birth-rate, and, as the mortality at some of the periods is far greater than at others, the death-rate falls indirectly under the same influence. The statistics of age, therefore, may be said to form a link between those of the population, considered as a fixed quantity, as at a census, and those which record its movement from year to year. To the correct interpretation of the latter, indeed, they are essential, as will appear below. Unfortunately, the return of age is amongst the less satisfactory results of a general enumeration, though its inaccuracy, when spread over millions of persons, is susceptible of correction mathematically, to an extent to make it serve its purpose in the directions above indicated. The error in the original return generally arises from ignorance. An illiterate population is very prone to state its age in even multiples of five, and even where education is widely spread this tendency is not altogether absent, as may be seen from the examples given in Table III.

Deliberate mis-statements, too, are not unknown, especially amongst women. This has been repeatedly illustrated in the English census reports. Irrespective of the wish of women between 25 and 40 to return themselves as under 25, there appears to be the more practical motive of obtaining better terms in industrial insurance, whilst an overstatement of age often has, it is said, the object of getting better wages in domestic service, or better dietary in the workhouse! In all countries, moreover, there seems to be an inclination to exaggerate longevity after the three score years and ten have been passed. In order to minimize the results of such inaccuracy, the return of ages is compiled in aggregates of five or ten years and then redistributed over single years by the method of differences. The present purpose being merely to illustrate the variation of distribution amongst a few representative countries, it is unnecessary to enter into more detail than such as will serve to distinguish the proportions of the population in main divisions of life. Thus it may be said that in the west of Europe about one-third of the people, roughly speaking, are under fifteen; about one-half, between that age and fifty, and the remaining sixth older than fifty. The middle period