| Abstrakt: |
This article presents the recent trends in U.S. child-bearing proportion as of March 1943. The reason it has become difficult to predict about the general upward trend in fertility is that there has been an apparent change in differential fertility. Groups that before were relatively fertile or sterile seem less so now. This change seems indicated in correlations between 1933 fertility and the percentage of fertility increase from 1933 to 1941. Thus, the total increase has favored a reduction of fertility differentials. This may mean that the relatively infertile have increased in child-bearing and that the relatively fertile have diminished in child-bearing. In this regard, one important clue to what has happened is found in the vitality statistics. Most significant is the fact that there has only been an increase in first and second births, there has not only been a relative but also an absolute decline. In turn, for women in each five-year age period beyond 30, there has been a decrease in the number of births. These facts become even more significant when it is found that during this period women aged 15 to 30 were decreasing in numbers while older women were increasing in population. |
