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51
porary 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
4,281 and of this number 3,919 occurred in hospitals and 362 in
private dwellings. In 1,684 cases the parents resided outside the
Borough and these births were subsequently transferred to their
appropriate districts leaving a figure of 2,597. To this must be
added 498 births belonging to this Borough which took place in
institutions outside the Borough, thus making a final total for
Greenwich of 3,095, a decrease of 74 (2.3%) from that calculated
for the previous year. Of the total, 1,555 were males and 1,540
females, a proportion of 1,010 males to 1,000 females compared
with 1.061 for England and Wales.

The Birth Rate for the year, calculated on the figure of 3,095
live births, is 14.26 per 1,000 of the population, 0.20 higher than
that computed for 1970. With an area comparability factor of 1.04,
an adjusted rate of 14.83 is returned compared with 16.0, the figure
for England and Wales and 14.14 for the Greater London area.
Inner London returned an unadjusted rate of 15.1.
Although, nationally, overall births were almost unchanged
during 1971 compared with an average annual decrease of 12,500
over the last six years, nevertheless, sharp increases were noted
at the end of 1970 and at the beginning of 1971 before the downward
trend was resumed. These variations were thought to be
partly due to the adverse publicity given to oral contraceptives at
the end of 1969 and the early part of 1970. No such effects were