Thus the birth-rate in France has continued to
fall in spite of those very conditions which should have sustained it
or even caused it to increase."
In America, conditions are not dissimilar. Although it is generally
believed that young persons are marrying at a later age than they did
formerly, the census figures show that for the population as a whole the
reverse is the case. Marriages are not only more numerous, but are
contracted at earlier ages than they were a quarter of a century ago.
Comparison of census returns for 1890, 1900 and 1910, reveals that for
both sexes the percentage of married has steadily increased and the
percentage listed as single has as steadily decreased. The census
classifies young men, for this purpose, in three age-groups: 15-19,
20-24, and 25-34; and in every one of these groups, a larger proportion
was married in 1910 than in 1900 or 1890. Conditions are the same for
women. So far as the United States as a whole is concerned, therefore,
marriage is neither being avoided altogether, nor postponed unduly,--in
fact, conditions in both respects seem to be improving every year.
So far the findings should gratify every eugenist. But the census
returns permit further analysis of the figures.
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