View report page

2
POPULATION.
The population enumerated in 1901 comprised 60,415 males and 82,136 females. As the
incidence of disease and death is very considerably influenced by the sex-age composition of
the population, each sex and age having what may be termed its special liabilities, it will be
useful to state some of the changes which have taken place in the composition of the population
of the Borough during the last ten years. In the comparisons now to be instituted it has been
thought desirable to include the figures for the old Parish of Paddington, which were obtained
to supplement the data for the Borough at the census of 1901.
Proportions of Males to Females.—In the population of the Borough at 1901 there was an
excess of 20,724 females, equal to 14.39 per cent. of the total population. The addition of the
new population to the Borough consequent on the extension of its boundaries materially affected
the proportion of females to the total population, the excess of females in 1901 within the old
Parish having been 20,718 (equal to 16.27 of the total population), the added population
importing more males than females. At the last census (1911) the excess of females amounted
to 21,721 individuals, and was equal to 15.24 per cent. of the total population. The foregoing
facts may be stated in another form, viz., by comparing the number of females enumerated to
each (say) 1,000 males. The results of such comparison are set out below.
In every 1,000 of the total population.
1901. 1911.
Males. Females. Males. Females.
Old Parish 419 581
Borough 428 572 424 576
To each 1,000 males, females in the total population.
1901. 1911.
Females. Males. Females. Males.
1,389 720
1,336 748 1,359 735
Changes in the Sex-age Grouping.—In Table 1 (page 5) the proportions of individuals (per
1,000 of each sex) as determined in 1901 and 1911 are set out, the figures for the reconstituted
old Parish being added to show the changes due to the addition to the population resulting from
the extension of the boundaries of the Parish. It will be seen that the added population contained
an excess of young persons, the proportions of males in the new Borough at ages under 25 and
of females under 15 being higher than in the old Parish.
The population determined at the last census was more "elderly" than that of 1901, the
proportions at ages under 25 for males and females being less than those determined at the
earlier census. The wide age-groups used in that table leave the actual ages at which the
changes in the proportions were first observed in doubt. An examination of the figures for fiveyear
age-groups shows that in both sexes the proportions below the group 30-35 years were less
in 1911 than in 1901, and at the higher ages, above. The alterations in the age-grouping are,
perhaps, better shown in the following summary:—

The changes indicated have been produced in part by the fall in the birth-rate and in part
by the migration of residents. The birth-rate during the three years 1899-1901 averaged 23.66
per 1,000 persons, that during the three years 1909-1911, 20.13—a decrease of 353 per 1,000, or
13.6 per cent. of the rate of the earlier period. In 1901 the males enumerated at ages 0-10
years formed 194 per 1,000 males, and in 1911, 189, the corresponding figures for females being
147 and 139. In 1901 the persons (both sexes) aged 0-10 years formed 167 of the total population,
and in 1911, 160—showing a reduction of 4.2 per cent. only as compared with a reduction
of 13.6 in the birth-rate.