Statutes
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1938.tb00393.x |
| Date | 01 June 1938 |
| Published date | 01 June 1938 |
STATUTES
49
STATUTES
The
Population
(Statistics)
Act,
1938
It
is appropriate that the centenary celebrations of the Ceneral Registex
Office
of England and Wales should be followed by an Act which extends
and improves the system of
vital
registration
in
this country. But
it
is
singularly unfortunate
that
we should have
had
to wait over a hundred
years for any fundamental change in the system introduced undw the
Registration Act of
1836.
The changes now made are intended to faeilitate
the study of population problems
in
this country, and
this
is
a
particularly
noteworthy pint. since previous Registration Acts were not really designed
for such
a
purpose.
A
memorandum issued by the General Register
Office
refers to this peculiar situation, and points out that “in England and
Wales, the prime purpose of
vital
registration is the recording of ‘Acts
of Civil Status.’ In the statutes dealing with the registration of births
and deaths there
is
practically
no
provision for statistical work,” and
“the first legislative enactment dealing specifically with this point
is
that
contained in Section
5
of the
Census
Act of
1920.”
The new Act, the object of which
is
specifically
stated
as
“the compilation
of statistical information with
respect
to the
social
and civil condition of
the population of Great Britain,” provides
that
a number of new questions
(the answering of which
is
compulsory) shall
be
asked
at
the registration
of births and deaths, and
all
these questions are designed to yield
material for evaluating the multiple elements affecting the replacement
rate of the population. Thus,
at
the birth of
a
child, the following new
questions
are
asked. First, the age of the mother. This
is
needed because
it
allows the calculation of fertility rates for the
various
age-groups in the
potentially fertile
span
of
a
woman’s life. From these rates may be com-
puted the number of female children which would be
born
to
a
woman
in her lifetime, according to the circumstances of
a
particular year or
period. This result, when combined with the relevant mortality data,
gives the net reproduction
rate,
which shows the extent to which women
in
a
given period
are
replacing themselves by women
in
the subsequent
generation, and forms one of the most useful indices of the degree to which
a population
is
maintaining itself, excluding the influence of
migration.
The second question
asks
the date of marriage of the mother of the child
which
is
being registered.
This
is
included
because
if
the fertility of
marriage is to be analysed and compared
as
between dSerent
@ads,
geographical regions and social classes, it
is
clearly
essential
to compare
marriages of equal duration. Further, by combining such
data
with
the
age of the mother
it
is possible
to
estimate the
separate
influence of the
age of the mother and the duration of marriage upon marital fertility.
Thirdly, the mother of the child which
is
being registered
is
asked two
questions about the number of children
born
to her during her lifetime.
One of these questions refers to the children of
pvious
xnamiages.
and
its
purpose is
to
enable women who have been married more than once
to be considered separately from those who have
been
married
once
only.
But the general question concerning the number of children
born,
has
a twofold purpose. First, the order of birth
of
newly
born
children provides
a
valuable index of the way
in
which changes in fertility are taking
place.
This
is
important in planning the
eial
services,
for clearly the
needs
of
new housing
wouId
be
different
if
a
general levelling of
all
families
to
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