Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Footnotes - Chapter 7
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
1220 An American Dilemma
practically no difference in the urban rates for the whites and nonwhites, this is
practically equivalent to standardizing for regions as well as for rural-urban residence.
It is not yet possible to standardize for both region and rural-urban residence at the
same time, since the necessary breakdowns have not yet been made available by the
Census Bureau and since Negro net reproduction rates were not calculated for rural
areas in the North or for rural or urban areas in the West. It is possible, however, to
standardize for region alone just as Jaffe standardized for urban-rural alone. The white
rate then becomes 95 and the Negro rate 96. The Negro rate is below the white rate,
of course, since—as we have just said—region and urban-rural residence are comparable.
® The net reproduction rate we have used is more reliable than the birth and death
rates which compose it because it is calculated from the decennial census statistics rather
than from the annual registration statistics, and the former are generally more reliable
than the latter. Even when annual registration statistics are used, however, the net
reproduction rate is usually more reliable since the under-registration of births and the
under-registration of deaths tend to cancel each other out, even when their exact
magnitude is unknown.
® Kirk, of, cit,, p. 7 and Figure l. Since birth registration statistics have become
available for a significant number of states only since 1915, Kirk was forced to use the
number of children under 5 years per 1,000 women aged 1 5-44 as an index of the birth
rate. In 1880 this was about 760 for Negroes, and in 1930 about 390.
Ibid,y If, 14.
The changes in the uncorrected crude birth rates were as follows:
1930 1940
White 18.7 * 7-5
Negro 21.7 21.7
These figures are, of course, subject to many errors, but they can be relied on for the
following two conclusions: (l) The white birth rate is lower than the Negro birth
rate. (2) The fall in the white birth rate between 1930 and 1940 was probably greater
than the fall in the Negro birth rate. The figures fail to show what is likely—that the
Negro birth rate fell between 1930 and 1940. (Texas—^wlth a high birth rate—was
not included in the 1930 figures, but was included in the 1940 ones.) These figures
were calculated from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics—Sfecial RefortSy
Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 9. The population bases were taken from the Sixteenth Census of
the United States: 1^40, Pofulation, Preliminary Release: Series P-io, No. i.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics—Sfecial Reforts: 1^40^ Vol. 14,
No. 2, p. 9.
Dorn, Of, cit, (1942, first draft, 1940), Figures 17 and 18.
^®The number of still-births per i,000 live births, according to the inadequate
official figures, was 2.76 for the whites and 5.81 for the Negroes during 1930. (U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics–^fecial Reforts: 1940, Vol. 1 4, No. 2, p. 9.)
Dorn, of, cit, (1942; first draft, 1940), p. 3. By 1939 the expectation of life
at birth had increased to 55.4 for nonwhite females and to 52.4 for nonwhite males.
The corresponding expectations for white infants were 66.8 and 62.6, or 11.4 and
10.2 years greater, respectively. {Idem)
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics—Sfecial Reforts: jg4o, Vol. 14, No. 2",
p. 9.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
