The Malthusian Principle and Sociology1

Abstract

THE variations of the birth rates and death rates in the different countries are most easily studied from the diagrams made of them by Dr. C. V. Drysdale, the president of the Malthusian League. Birth rates remained high, except in France and Ireland, until 1876. Then the birth rate of England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and of Europe as a whole, suddenly began to fall. This sudden onset of declining fertility must have been due to contraception. The death rates fell with the birth rates, and in such close correspondence as to show that the fall of the death rates was closely related to the fall of the birth rates. That the progress in medical science and sanitation reduced the death rates in such close parallelism with the birth rates can scarcely have been a coincidence. Moreover, when one examines the vital statistics of Rumania, Chile, and Jamaica, and of Russia from 1881 tp 1901, and of Ireland from 1886 to 1911, one finds a horizontally-oscillating or fairly stationary birth rate and a similar death rate. Why were not medicine and sanitation reducing the death rate of any of these countries when their birth rate was stationary? Furthermore, Bulgaria, Ceylon, and Japan had a rising birth rate and a rising death rate from 1881 to 1911. Why did these countries theh have a rising death rate notwithstanding medical progress?