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11
actual housing conditions. It is obvious from superficial consideration
that large families can be housed more economically than small
in the matter of average room density; the larger families include,
as a rule, an over-normal average proportion of children for whom
the necessary space provision cannot be as high as that of a corresponding
proportion of adults; while in the matter of sex separation
in sleeping rooms, the chance of being able to utilise the
available accommodation to its full capacity will clearly be greater
when the family is a large one. It may normally be inferred, for
example, that in the case of both three-person families and six
person families housed at the same numerical density ratio of
persons per room, the six-person families will be the better housed.
Similarly, as the numerical density ratio in the case of the larger
families tends to represent their true housing conditions unfavourably,
so with regard to the population transferred from the larger
to the smaller families, an arithmetical comparison of the lower
densities of the latter with the higher densities of the former tendsi
to over state the real measure of improvement in housing conditions.
"So far, therefore, as the reduction in the over-all average
density is due to a transfer of population from the larger to the
smaller families, the reduction only partially reflects a real
improvement in housing conditions. Stated conversely. the continued
break up of families into smaller units has made the population
harder to house by reducing the proportion of those types of
family which are more economically housed and increasing those
which are less economically housed. The continued reduction in
the average size of the family has thus in itself amortised a portion
of the additional housing provision made within the last ten years,
some portion of that provision having been absorbed in coping with
the effects of changes adverse in themselves to the maintenance of
satisfactory housing conditions."

The above Table brings out several conflicting facts. The
increase in private families was greater than the actual intercensal
increase of population, viz., 3,577.