Document 17K: Walter F. Willcox, "Changes in Negro and White Birth Rates," Birth Control Review, 16, no. 6 (June 1932): 179-80.

Document 17K: Walter F. Willcox, "Changes in Negro and White Birth Rates," Birth Control Review, 16, no. 6 (June 1932): 179-80.



[p. 179]

Changes in Negro and White Birth Rates

By WALTER F. WILLCOX

THE population of the United States is classified at each census by color or race. Mainly because of the increasing racial complexity of the population, but partly also because of the growth of interest in racial characteristics and problems, the classification has become more detailed. At the first census in 1790 only two elements were distinguished, whites and Negroes. At the latest census nine elements' were distinguished, as shown in the following table:

Population in Thousands Per Cent
Color or Race 1920 1930 of Increase
White 94,821 108,864 14.8
Negro 10,463 11,891 13.6
Mexican 701 1,423 103.1
Indian 244 332 36.0
Japanese 111 139 25.1
Chinese 62 75 21.6
Filipino 5.6 45.2 706.9
Hindu 2.5 3.1 24.9
Korean 1.2 1.9 52.0
----- ----- -----
Total 105,711 122,775 16.1

   The table shows that each minor element increased within the last census period more rapidly than the general population and more rapidly than whites or Negroes. As a result, and this is a new fact in our social history, the proportion of whites and Negroes in the United States is now decreasing. Between 1790 and 1920 the proportion of whites in the population steadily increased from about eight-tenths in 1790 to almost nine-tenths in 1920. The change since 1920 was due mainly to the rapid influx of Mexicans.

   In the population as a whole the number of children under five years of age at each of the four enumerations since the twentieth century opened was

Date of
Census
Population
in Thousands
Children
under 5
in Thousands
Children to 1,000
Population
1900 75,995 7,268 96
1910 91,972 10,631 116
1920 105,711 11,573 109
1930 122,775 11,444 93

   The outstanding fact revealed by the preceding figures is that while the population increased between 1920 and 1930 by more than seventeen million, or 16.1 per cent, the number of children in the country decreased by 129,000, or 1.1 per cent. For more than a century the proportion of children

[p. 180]

in the population has been falling, but this is the first time that the number has decreased. The figures make possible the following classification of young children:

CHILDREN UNDER 5 IN THOUSANDS

Decennial
1920 1930 Increase Decrease
Native white native parents 7,366 7,939 573
Native white foreign-born
parents
2,124 1,124 1,000
Native white mixed parents 838 836 2
Foreign-born white 45 28 17
Negro 1,144 1,230 87
Other races 56 287 231
Total 11,573 11,444 130

   It appears that the fall in the American birth rate since 1920 is due mainly to the check upon immigration within that decade or since 1915, which has reduced the number of foreign-born wives of childbearing age by 10 per cent and at the same time decreased the number and proportion of young and fertile wives within that group by 11 per cent.

   With this result in hand let us turn to examine the birth rate of the Negroes.

   There were 393 Negro children in the country in 1930 to each 1,000 Negro women of childbearing age, the number of white children at the same date per thousand white women being 385. The base adopted in this case is all women of childbearing age whether married or unmarried because the different illegitimacy rates of the two races make it unwise to limit the comparison to one with married women. This rough measure indicates that the birth rate of Negroes in the years immediately preceding 1930 was a little higher than that of the whites. As the Negro infant mortality was much greater than that of whites, the birth rate figures understate the difference between the two races.

   Birth rate figures have been recorded only since 1915 and included at the start only northern states, with three-tenths of the country's population and only one-tenth of its Negro population.

   There are two areas, however, in which births have been registered long enough to show conditions and trends. The first, Group A, includes 11 States which were in the birth registration area from the start and for which the record extends over 15 years. The second, Group B, includes 13 States scattered from North Carolina to Washington, with about one-fourth of the country's population of each race. It is thus far more representative than the first group of the country as a whole. It embraces the States added to the birth registration area betwen 1915 and 1919, inclusive, except South Carolina, which dropped out for three years. For Group B the record covers 11 years. The annual birth rates of whites and Negroes in these two groups and the differences between them are shown in the following table:

ANNUAL BIRTH RATES OF NEGROES AND WHITES

GROUP A1 GROUP B2
Excess (+)
or Shortage (-)
Excess (+)
or Shortage (-)
Date Negro White among Negroes Negro White among Negroes
1915 18.8 25.2 -6.4
1916 15.6 25.2 -9.6
1917 19.7 25.3 -5.6
1918 20.3 24.9 -4.6
1919 21.2 22.8 -1.6 25.1 21.2 +3.9
1920 22.6 23.8 -1.2 26.9 22.9 +4.0
1921 23.1 24.0 -0.9 28.6 23.7 +4.9
1922 21.4 22.5 -1.1 26.3 22.0 +4.3
1923 22.7 22.3 +0.4 26.6 22.2 +4.4
1924 25.1 22.4 +2.7 27.6 22.4 +5.2
1925 24.2 21.5 +2.7 26.4 21.2 +5.2
1926 23.5 20.5 +3.0 25.3 20.2 +5.1
1927 24.1 20.4 +3.7 24.8 20.0 +4.8
1928 22.8 19.5 +3.3 23.7 19.2 +4.5
1929 21.6 18.5 +3.1 22.5 18.2 +4.3
Change +2.8 -6.7 -2.6 -3.0

   

   1 Includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Michigan and Minnesota.

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   2 Includes Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Utah, Washington, Oregon, California, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky.

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