FERTILITY OF DIFFERENT STOCKS 35 
combined effect of high birth rate and favourable adult age distribution. In spite of very 
high mortality rates and unfavourable sex distribution the proportions of children under ten 
years of age in those seven races were approximately two-thirds greater than obtained for 
the British stock jn Canada. The Italians, with an infant mortality rate considerably larger 
than that for the British and with half again as many men as women in Canada, show 
32-04 p.c. of their population under ten years of age. The Greeks, with between two and 
three times more adult males than females and an infant mortality rate higher than the 
Italians, showed a proportion under ten years of age some 25 p.c. larger than the average 
figure for the British stocks. 
Such facts are important as indicating the relative proportions which the several races 
contributed to the rising generation in the nine years preceding 1921. So long as the 
zonditions remain as in the past decade, the natural increase of foreign stocks and especially 
of the South, Eastern and Central Europesns, will continue to be about one-half again as 
1arge as that for the British stock. 
(2) The 1926 Census of the three Prairie Provinces and the Annual Reports on Vital 
Statistics furnish sufficiently detailed data to permit the elimination of the factor of age 
in studying birth rates for women of various origins (though no correction is possible for 
conjugal condition). It was found that the stocks which are most illiterate and most rural 
multiply much more rapidly than those with higher educational standards and larger per- 
centages in incorporated cities, towns and villages. It is especially significant that at least 
the second, and probably subsequent generations of the non-British stocks, appear to have 
somewhat higher birth rates than the original immigrants. How long these high rates will 
continue is a matter of speculation, as is the extent to which differences in birth rates are 
sceasioned by bona fide differences in fertility and differences in the proportions of women 
marrying—especially at earlier ages. 
The striking correlation with illiteracy recalls the close relationship established in earlier 
chapters between illiteracy, intermarriage, school attendance, learning of the languages of 
Canada and crime. Now high fertility may be added. It is not necessary to repeat that 
the groups which have the lowest educational standards and intermarry least appear most 
frequently in criminal statistics nor to review the growing predominance of these among 
recent immigrants from Europe. The mere mention of these facts is adequate to establish 
the significance of the exceptionally high birth rates among the women of such stocks and 
the tendency to increase rather than diminish. 
(3) The infant mortality rate in 1925 for the average British stock in Canada was 6.16 
per 100 births, for the average Scandinavian people 5.37, for the average Slavie people 
3.97, for the Latins and Greeks 10.73, for the average Asiatic stock 10.86, and for the 
French 11.45. From the four Slavic stocks with the highest infant mortality rates, viz., 
Austrians (13.76), Polish (12.30), Ukrainian (9.75), and Russian (9.15), Canada has denved 
the great bulk of her Slavie immigration during the last two decades. 
SUMMARY TABLES 
Summary tables are appended which present the principal findings of the report in 
such form that the standing of each of the immigrant groups and stocks in Canada may 
oe seen at a glance. The vertical columns give comparative standing in respect to each 
of the different points studied; reading horizontally, the standing of each group is obtained 
m all counts. The irregular nature of many of the series and the comparatively small 
lumber of groups from a statistical point of view, made it impracticable to follow any 
iniform plan in designating the percentages as “large”, “small”, “average”, etc. The 
srocedure was varied with the nature of the dispersion, hoping thereby to suit more closely 
the verbal ranking to the actual figures. Where data are not included, they were either 
>onsidered as of minor importance, as obviously unrepresentative or were not available. 
Fables 2, 3, 5 and 6 being verbal summaries no further comment is necessary. 
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