AGE DISTRIBUTION OF DIFFERENT STOCKS 81 
tends to even up the proportions before the adult age is reached. Then from 20 to 45, owing 
to higher mortality among women during the child-bearing period, the proportion of men is 
usually greater than that of women in a population. 
Now, among those of Canadian birth, the proportions at the respective ages are very 
nearly equal, and in that respect the age distribution tends to be closer to the normal than 
in the case of the British or foreign born. However, contrary to the normal expectation, the 
proportion of Canadian born females from 14 to 35 years is slightly greater than that of 
males. For the ages 20 to 35 the explanation is very obvious. First, a large number of 
young men were killed during the war, and the figures are for 1921, only two and one-half 
years after the cessation of hostilities. In the second place, emigration was probably 
another contributory factor, as men emigrate to a far greater extent than do women. 
For the British born the differences are much larger. Below 30 years of age the females 
are concentrated to an appreciably more marked degree than the males. The same obtains 
to an even greater extent among those of foreign birth. In the group under 15 years of age 
almost one per cent more British born and over three per cent more foreign born females 
than males are found. The explanation is not hard to find. When the number of women 
in the population is small compared to that of men, the female children will tend to form 
a larger percentage of all females than will the male children of all males, the numbers of 
children of each sex being roughly equal, The explanation of the higher percentage of 
females for the years immediately above that group may be found in the tendency of larger 
proportions of women to immigrate in the early years of womanhood. Many come to marry 
men who have arrived at an earlier date, and a lag of five years in the largest female age 
group behind that of the largest male group is quite consistent with a normal inflow of 
immigration. Further, following the war, immigration from a number of countries showed 
an abnormally large proportion of females, so that in 1921, for which year the age distribu- 
tions are charted, the surplus of foreign born women between 20 and 30 years of age resulted 
from the interaction of several causes with which everyone is familiar. The same phenome- 
non characterized to a less extent the age distribution of the British born and the same forces 
were operative. 
An age lag also appears in the case of the adult female immigrants, who show smaller 
proportions than do the males in the higher age groups. The age lag in the higher groups 
has been handed on from immigration in previous decades, and the deficiency of females at 
those higher ages tends to compensate for the larger proportions of females among the groups 
of children 15 years of age and under. 
There is one other point of interest presented in the charts. The largest percentage of 
men of foreign birth was in the age group 30 to 34, while the largest percentage of men of 
British birth appeared in the group 35 to 39. The highest percentage of women immigrants 
from foreign countries was in the age group 25 to 29, while the largest percentage of women 
of British birth appeared in the age group 35 to 39. The explanation seems to be that on 
the average the British immigrants either came to Canada at a later age or arrived at an 
sarlier date than the foreign born immigrants. 
AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE DIFFERENT STOCKS IN CANADA 
Table 40 shows the numbers and percentages of the principal stocks in Canada by 
specified age groups. In the previous subsection attention was focussed on the ages of the 
population by broad nativity groups, and especially on the foreign born section of our popu- 
lation. Detailed data for the foreign born by countries of birth were not directly available, 
but it has been possible to compile the present origin table showing the percentages for each 
44998