shown in Table XXIII. According to the estimates in this Table there were then no less than 1,302,100 children under 15, of whom 519,100 were under 5. It will be seen that the numbers in the age groups 15-19 and 20-24, which include people born between mid-1937 and mid-1947, are very much less than the numbers in the groups below and above. This is, of course, due to the war, during which the population is estimated to have shrunk to about 600,000. There is a preponderance of males up to and including age group 45-49 after which females are in the majority.
83. The natural increase in the population, being the excess of registered births over registered deaths, was 89,988. The population was also swollen by unnumbered thousands of illegal immigrants.
Births Registered
84. The number of births registered in 1961 was 108,726, comprising 107,302 Chinese (55,505 male and 51,797 female), and 1,424 non- Chinese (740 male and 684 female). Table XXIV gives (a) the numbers of births registered during the years 1948 to 1961 by sex and race with the percentages of males and females, and of Chinese and non-Chinese, and (b) the live birth rates per thousand of population for the same years, the 1961 rate being 34.2. This Table shows that the total number of births registered in 1961 is down 1,941 from the previous year's record total of 110,667. At first sight it was thought that this decline might be attributable to improved family planning, but on applying the standard fertility 'weights' of 1, 7, 7, 6, 4 and 1 to the age groups of women of child bearing age, namely 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44, the total came out almost exactly at what might have been predicted, assuming that the birth rate remained unchanged. The decrease in births may therefore be attributed to the changes in the composition of the age groups of the women of child-bearing age.
85. Table XXIV also shows that the percentage of Chinese male births has always been 3% or 4% higher than the percentage of female births but there were two years, 1951 and 1953, when the percentage of non-Chinese male births fell below that of female births. The total of 1,424 non-Chinese births was the highest ever recorded in one year. The detailed figures kept by the General Register Office reveal a distinct pattern in the incidence of births throughout the year. In the first place, the number of births recorded in the fourth quarter of the calendar year is invariably higher than those in the other quarters; in the second place, the number of births in the second quarter of the year has always been
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