Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1923-03-03
College Education And
The Declining Bnthrate
Statistics Show That College Edu-
Gated Couples Have Small
Families.

Is college education for women a
factor in the declining birthrate ?
This and other questions are partly
answered in a report in the forthcom-
ing issue of the American Journal of
Sociology. The material is taken
from a study made by members of
the class in statistics at Mount
Holyoke College under the direction
OF Professor Amy Hewes. head of the
Department Of Economics. The figures
tend to show that college educated
couples have smaller families and that
the college education Of the mother is
q more influential factor in this con-
|nection than is the education Of the
father.
The conclusions are based on data
gathered from the families of $40
students and from their parents
families.
"In the parents generation the av-
erage number of children in the fami-
l. was five," says the report, "but in
the students generation the average
number was three. This is signifi-
cant shrinkage for the short span of
'one generation, but the figures in
this form give no proof that the sharp
drop in the size Of the family is char
acteristic of college families only.
The next step was therefore the COM
parison of the number of children
born in families which had not felt
the influence of higher education. So
small a proportion Of the families in
either generation 1856 in all, or less
tlan one-fifth) had gone to college
that the figures are inconclusive; but
as they stand they indicate that COL
lege education for the parents means
smaller families than they would
otherwise have and that it is the COL
lcge education of the mother which is
the more important in keeping down
the size Of the family.
"The average number of children
born in families in which neither
parent had a college education was
4.6; in cases where the father had
college education but the mother had
not the average number was 81;
where the mother alone had gone to
college the average, the lowest Of all,
was 81, and where both parents were
college-trained the average number of
children born to them was SO.
'The number of children born, how
ever, is only partial indication of the
effect of college training on the ults-
mate size of the family, for the pro-
portion Of children who survive is a
figure which is demanded by modern
social analysis. Here again the re-
suits are not conclusive, but the indi-
cation is. that the children Of college
parents have the better chance of
surviving, and that it is in the fami-
lies in which the mother is college
woman that the proportion of chill
dren who survive is greatest.
"In the students generation 80 per
cent. of the children of college par
ents were still living, but only 85.9 per
cent. of the children of non-college
parents were living. Where the
mother alone had gone to college the
figure was close to the percentage for
both parents (91.7 per cent?. In the
parents generation the percentage of
survival for the children was 68.3 in
the families where both parents were
college trained and 66.9 where Meth
er had gone to college. In cases where
the mother only had attended college
the percentage of children surviving
was highest Of all-77 per cent"