View report page

born immigrants, mainly European, are more frequent in the boroughs of Chelsea, Kensington,
Hampstead, Paddington, St. Marylebone, Westminster and Holborn. In all, there were
proportionately more persons not born in the United Kingdom north of the river than
south, notably in the boroughs of Kensington, Hampstead, Paddington and Westminster,
where about one-third of the population were not of United Kingdom origin.
Fertility
Details of births in London have been given annually in this report. The diagram on
page 5 shows how the crude birth rate from 1951 to 1961 has exceeded that for England
and Wales, with the exception of the years 1952 and 1953, but that when corrected for the
proportion of women of child bearing age in the population the fertility of London women
is lower than the national experience. The proportion of women age 15-44 years in London
was 41.0 per cent. compared with 39.2 in England and Wales; in 1951 the corresponding
percentages were 44.4 and 41.4 respectively. However, this adjustment has no regard to
the proportion of married women, who in London give rise currently to some 86 per cent, of
births, and the following table shows the proportion of women ever married for the years
1931, 1951 and 1961, together with the corresponding proportions for England and Wales
in 1961.

There was a dramatic change over the twenty years 1931-51, when the proportion of
young women married under age 20 years increased three times and the proportion under
24 years doubled. This span of twenty years covered a period of turbulent social history;
from the economic depression of the early 1930's, through the greatest war in history with
active involvement of the citizen population, to the early post-war period of shortages and
priorities, all accompanied by vast social change of which earlier age at marriage was but
one facet. The trend towards marriage at an earlier age has continued in the past decade
though at a slower pace; the percentage of women married in London was at the census,
8.9 per cent. at ages 16-19 years, 45.9 per cent. at ages 20-24 years, 74.7 per cent. at ages
25-34 years and 83.7 per cent. at ages 35-44 years. However, with the exception of ages
under 20, all these proportions are lower than the national ones, which means there are
proportionately more unmarried women of child bearing years in London than there are
nationally. The following figures are the numbers of single women in London's population:
Age
16-19 81,784
20-24 73,050
25-34 55,816
35-44 36,371
This higher proportion of single women in London has a bearing on the illegitimacy
rate, a matter of some concern in recent years, see page 61.
Mortality
Figure 2 on page 124 depicts, for males and females separately, the death rates by age and
sex for periods of three years centred on the censuses of 1931, 1951 and 1961. From
infancy to old age in all three periods the rates for males are higher than those for females.
123