Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1969-1970 — Page 60

of such registrations since 1962-63, except in 1967-68, is due partly to the back-log of unregistered births which occurred during and im- mediately 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.

171. Table XXXVIII gives the numbers of births post-registered in 1969-70 more than one year after birth by sex and age group. This reveals that of the 1,923 post-registrations 787 were in respect of males and 1,136 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 the 1-4 group, and the second highest the 5-9 group. As compared with the previous year, cases in respect of persons under 20 years of age declined by 215 to 1,640, and cases relating to persons of 20 and over declined from 338 to 283.

172. The 1,244 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.

173. During the year, post-registration birth certificates were issued for 28 foundling children in various orphanages, baby homes, and chari- table institutions, whose births had not been registered on admission.

174. 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 $3,897 in respect of stamp duty on such declarations.

Deaths Registered

175. Table XXXIX gives the number of deaths registered in the years 1960 to 1969 by sex and race, with the relevant percentages and the crude death and infant mortality rates. During 1969, despite the increase in population the number of deaths registered was, as compared with 1968, down by 589 to 18,730 (55.02% being of males, 44.97% being of females, and 0.01% being of unknown sex), comprising 18,441 Chinese (10,099 males, 8,341 females and 1 of unknown sex) and 289

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