M 16
BIRTHS.
The births registered during the year were as follows:---
Males. Females. Total. Chinese, Non-Chinese, 1,558 774 2,332 134 145 279 Total, 1915, 1,692 919 2,611 1914, 1,920 1,081 3,001This gives a general birth rate of 6.1 per 1,000 as compared with 7.3 per 1,000 in 1914 and 9.4 in 1913.
The birth rate among the Non-Chinese community was 13.2 per 1,000 as compared with 16.8 per 1,000 in 1914 and 15.8 in 1913.
The nationalities of the Non-Chinese parents were as follows: British 128, Portuguese 68, Indian 40, Malay 10, Filipino 9, German, American, and Jewish 3 each, Dutch, Parsee, Armenian, and Japanese 2 each, and 1 each of Danish, Norwegian, Eurasian, Burmese, Panamanian, Arab, and West Indian.
The number of Chinese births registered does not give an accurate record of the number of births which have occurred. Owing to the custom of the Chinese of not registering births unless the child has survived for a month and often in the case of female children not at all, it is probable that the majority if not all of the infants which are sickly at birth or die before reaching the age of one month have not been registered.
It is customary therefore to assume that all children of one month old and under who are admitted to the various Convents (being brought there sick by poor people) and all young infants found dead in the streets, harbour, hillside, etc., by the police have been born in the Colony but not registered. By adding the number of such children to the number of registered births, it is assumed that a somewhat more correct number of births is obtained and from this is calculated a corrected birth rate.
The number of such children in 1915 was 308 males and 582 females, total 890 which being added to the registered births makes a total of 3,501 as compared with 3,968 in 1914. The corrected birth rate is therefore 8.69 while amongst the Chinese community alone the rate becomes 8.4 instead of 5.7 per 1,000.
The preponderance of male over female registered births is very marked amongst the Chinese, there being 201 males to every 100 females; in 1914 the proportion was 188 to 100 and in 1913, 137 to 100. With the addition of the above-mentioned 890 unregistered births the proportion becomes 152 males to 100 females.
In the Non-Chinese community the proportion of male births to female births for 1915 was 92.4 to 100 as compared with 117 to 100 in 1914 and 107 to 100 in 1913.