M 11
Registration of births and deaths is compulsory and is carried out under the directions of the Director of Medical Services who is also Registrar-General of Births & Deaths. Procedure is governed by The Births & Deaths Registration Ordinance, No. 21 of 1934, and valuable assistance is obtained from the Police Department and the staff of the Chinese Dispensaries. There are seven register offices in the Island of Hong Kong, four in Kowloon on the mainland and eleven in the New Territories and on certain of the larger islands.
Birth registration is still incomplete, partly as the result of ignorance or laziness and partly owing to a Chinese custom of postponing the event until the child is in its second year.
Against this, a tendency has shown itself since the commencement of disturbances in Far Eastern waters to endeavour to register births in Hong Kong as a preliminary step towards claiming British nationality, even when the evidence of local birth is of the most slender.
Births registered in 1937 showed an increase from 27,383 (530 Non-Chinese) in 1936 to 32,303* (692 Non-Chinese). The crude, uncorrected birth-rate for 1937 is calculated as 32.1 per thousand of the mid-year population. This compares with a rate of 27.8 for the previous year. Some 34,635 deaths were registered in 1937 amongst the civilian population, an increase of 9,255 over the figure for 1936. (In addition, eleven deaths were recorded in the Forces of the Crown during the year.) It is significant that the monthly average of deaths for the first seven months of the year was 2,349, whereas the monthly average for the last five months was 3,638—the refugee problem and typhoon being largely accountable. The crude, uncorrected death-rate for the civilian population is estimated at 34.4 per thousand living, the corresponding figure for 1936 being 25.8.
Still-births numbered 913 in 1937 and 976 in 1936.
Deaths in Chinese infants under one year of age numbered 9,905 in 1936 and 11,620 in 1937, the respective infant mortality rates being 372 and 376, post-registered births being deducted from the total Chinese births in making the calculation.
(2) Non-Chinese Population.
There were 692 births (387 male and 305 female) including late registrations in this section or 162 more than in 1936. The crude birth-rate is estimated to be 30.6 per thousand living in 1937 as compared with 23.3 in 1936.
Non-Chinese deaths numbered 236 (apart from seventeen deaths in the Forces of the Crown) in 1936 giving a death-rate of 10.9 per thousand living. In the year under review the figures were 244 (excluding eleven deaths in the Forces) with a death-rate of eleven.
*Includes 744 post registrations after 12 months (705 Chinese, 39 Non-Chinese).