Britain: An official handbook > 1959

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BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
population. This ratio was at a minimum in the 1930s. Since then the continuous
fall in death rates and the low inter-war birth rates have been increasing the propor¬
tion of elderly people, and thus reducing the proportion of the working population
to the total population. The small age groups born between the wars have been
coming to maturity. The size of the age groups reaching retirement age increases
yearly, as these groups were born during a period of rapidly expanding population.
The continuing fall of death rates in all age groups has still further increased the
number of old persons. Moreover, the higher birth rates since 1942 have arrested
the compensating fall in the number of dependent children and have thus reduced
the ratio of working to dependent population.
At mid-1957 the age distribution of the United Kingdom was estimated as
follows:
23 '2 per cent
65-3 per cent
11-5 per cent
Under 15
15 to 64
65 and over . .
During the present decade an unusually large proportion of the population of
the United Kingdom (about 15 per cent) is between 40 and 50 years of age.
Assuming that mortality rates continue to fall, and disregarding migration, it can
therefore be shown that:
(1) over the next 15 years the population of working age will increase slowly;
(2) the number of old people (over 65) will increase over the next 30 years by
about 2! million.
Sex Ratio. Total live births of boys currently exceed those of girls by about 6 per
cent, but owing to the higher infant mortality rate among boys, and the higher male
death rates in all age groups, women have for the past 100 years outnumbered men
from adolescence onwards and in the total population. Their predominance in¬
creases with age and is now over 60 per cent among persons over 70 years of age.
The fall in mortality has affected the sex ratio by increasing the proportion of old
persons in both sexes, which has made female predominance in those age groups a
weightier factor in the sex ratio of the population as a whole. At the same time
there has been a slight rise in the proportion of boys among children under 15 years
of age, and the ages at which males outnumber females extend beyond adolescence
to about 24 years.
The proportion of females to males in the total population has not varied greatly,
however, as these two effects have counterbalanced each other. At present there are
between seven and eight per cent more females than males.
Regional Distribution and Trends
The distribution of the population of the British Isles by country and major
administrative region as enumerated at the 1951 censuses, at certain previous
censuses back to 1841, and as estimated at mid-1957, is shown in Tables 1 and 2.
The populations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and of each
of the principal regions of England were in every case greater in 1957 than in 1951
and in 1951 than in 1931, whereas in the period 1921-31 the populations of Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland had declined. Between 1931 and 1951> the greatest
increases were in the eastern, southern, midland and south-western regions of
England, and in Northern Ireland. The smallest increase was in Wales. Since 1951
the main increases have been in the eastern, southern and north midland regions of
England.