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2
An additional advantage in the use of National Register populations
is that these consist of habitual residents in each locality, and not merely
of the persons who happened to be present therein on a certain date.
The deaths tabulated from the year 1911 onwards are also those of
habitual residents only, and, therefore, the use hitherto of populations
which in certain cases included very large institutional elements, chiefly
composed of non-residents, introduced in these cases serious errors into
the rates calculated from them, as pointed out in the Registrar-General's
Annual Reports. This source of error now, of course, disappears for the
time being, and in such districts an unavoidable break in the continuity
of the previously misleading rates will result. In any case, however,
the maintenance of continuity is, under present circumstances, obviously
impossible, and it is felt that the present estimates will furnish deathrates
calculated to indicate as nearly as may be the health conditions of
the civil population.
The method by which the estimates of civil population have been
derived from the National Register returns may now be described.
The ratio of the total population, less the males aged 15-65 years to
the number of females aged 15 to 65 years at the date of the census was
calculated for each administrative area, and this ratio was applied to the
number of females on the National Register; the resulting products
plus the number of males aged 15 to 65 years on the National Register
was taken to be the number of the Civil population of the district. A
small adjustment was necessary in order to make the sum of the
estimates for the several districts equal to the estimate for the country
as a whole made on the same basis. Further, the population in institutions
was not registered, and this (taken to be the same in the aggregate
for England and Wales as at census date) together with a number of
persons of no fixed abode were distributed evenly over the whole country.
These two adjustments raised the original estimates by about one per
cent.
The question of the population to be used for the calculation of birthrates
has also required consideration. The births registered are not only
those of the children of civilians, and the estimates of civil population
therefore, form an unsuitable basis for the calculation of birth-rates. It
is impossible to frame any estimate that would give reliable birth-rates,
and it is suggested, therefore, that the birth-rates for 1915 be based upon
the existing estimates of total population for 1914. These will sometimes
be seriously in error owing to extensive migration having
occurred.
Difficulties, which will probably prove insoluble, remain as to
estimation of populations in sex and age groups, and the standardizing
factors dependent upon them.