Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1966-1967 — Page 58

urban and rural, was only 200. Of these 200 outstanding applications, 88 were in the urban area, the remaining 112 in the New Territories.

162. Table XXXIV gives the number of births post-registered after one year from birth during the period 1945-57 and the years 1957-58 to 1966-67, from which it will be seen that no less than 65,532 have been registered in the 22 years since the war. The decline in the number of such registrations since 1962-63 is due partly to the back-log of unregistered births which occurred during and immediately after the war having been greatly reduced, and partly to the fact that for many years past only a small percentage of births have not been registered soon after the birth. It will be noted that the number registered in the urban areas is now almost equal to that registered in the New Territories.

163. Table XXXV gives the numbers of births post-registered in 1966-67 more than one year after birth by sex and age group. This reveals that of the 2,103 post-registrations 873 were in respect of males. and 1,230 in respect of females. The preponderance of females appears to indicate that more care was taken at the time of birth to register males than females. The age group with the highest number of post- registrations was again the 5-9 group, reflecting the demand for birth certificates for school purposes. 1,738 were in respect of persons under 20 years of age, leaving only 365 cases of 20 and over. Since 1962-63 the numbers of cases relating to persons of 20 and over have declined as follows: 1962-63, 2,075; 1963-64, 1,622; 1964-65, 1,268; 1965-66, 709; and 1966-67, 365.

164. The 1,037 births post-registered after one year at the urban district registries were partly in respect of cases where the parents had neglected to register the birth, or had been unable to do so owing to there being no facilities during the war, and partly in respect of cases where the birth was believed to have been registered, but owing to the loss during the war of the register in question and the birth certificate issued at the time, no record of the birth was extant.

165. During the year, post-registration birth certificates were issued for 12 foundling children in various orphanages, baby homes, and charitable institutions, whose births had not been registered on admission.

166. In addition to the post-registration fee, stamp duty of $3 is payable on each supporting statutory declaration. In the course of the year the three teams collected a total of $7,998 in respect of stamp duty on such declarations.

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