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43
which give rise to them. Thus it can be seen that future fertility
is contingent upon past fertility.
Fertility varies not only with age, marriage and its duration
but also with occupation and social class, with area of residence
(whether urban or rural), with religion and with several other
factors. Some attempt at correction for variation is made by the
Registrar General with his "area comparability factor". This, however,
is unable to take account of human volition and, nowadays,
the position is further complicated by the fact that contraception is
becoming widespread throughout all classes. Under these circumstances
long range forecasts of population changes inevitably
become unreliable.
Logically, the introduction during 1967 of the Family Planning
and Abortion Acts could be expected to have an impact on
fertility rates and it would seem appropriate for some comparative
statistics to be introduced to measure this influence.
In the following table, which indicates fertility rates calculated
for the Borough since its inception in 1965, (c) is the most and (a)
the least accurate of the three methods usually employed to
portray fertility: —
general fertility 1965 1966 1967 1968
(a) Crude Birth Rate (per 1,000
pop.) 16.11 16.10 15.62 *14.86
(b) General Fertility Rate (per
1,000 women 15-44 years) 80.68 80.44 78.37 74.44
(0 Legitimate
(a) Crude Birth Rate (per 1,000
pop.) 14.75 14.71 14.04 13.42
b) General Fertility Rate (per
1,000 women 15-44 years) 73.85 73.51 70.41 67.18
(c) General Fertility Rate (per
1,000 married women
15-44 years) 117.22 120.13 111.76† 106.64
(if) Illegitimate
(a) Crude Birth Rate (per 1,000
pop.) 1.36 1.39 1.59 1.45
(b) General Fertility Rate (per
1,000 women 15-44 years) 6.82 6.93 7.96 7.26
(c) General Fertility Rate (per
1,000 unmarried women
15-44 years) 18.54 18.72 21.53 ‡19.62
* England and Wales Rate— 16.9
† England and Wales Rate—118.1
‡ England and Wales Rate— 22.8