View report page

41
convenient method of indicating the gross rate of increase of the
population by births.
However, this rate gives no guide to future effects of contemporary
variations in fertility on the maintenance or otherwise of
the population or its age characteristics and, since the population
figure used in its computations not only contains males but also
females outside childbearing age, the birth rate should not be used
as an accurate calculation of fertility.
Live births registered in the Borough during the year totalled
4,238 and of this number 3,808 occurred in hospitals and 430 in
private dwellings. In 1,662 cases the parents resided outside the
Borough and these births were subsequently transferred to their
appropriate districts leaving a figure of 2,576. To this must be
added 593 births belonging to this Borough which took place in
institutions outside the Borough, thus making a final total for
Greenwich of 3,169, a decrease of 94 (2.9%) from that calculated
for the previous year. Of the total, 1,633 were males and 1,536
females, a proportion of 1,063 males to 1,000 females compared
with 1,058 for England and Wales.

The Birth Rate for the year, calculated on the figure of 3,169
live births, is 14.06 per 1,000 of the population, 0.30 lower than
that computed for 1969. With an area comparability factor of 1.04,
an adjusted rate of 14.62 is returned compared with 16.0, the figure
for England and Wales and 14.13 for the Greater London area.
Inner London returned an unadjusted rate of 15.0.
Although since 1965 the yearly total of Greenwich births has
declined by 522 (14.8%), the next few years should show an upward