Certain
unfavorable economic conditions have developed in this country of recent
years for this particular element; especially have higher standards of
living increased among the native white population in the United States
more rapidly than their income. This has led to later marriages and
smaller families. Again, more intense competition along all lines has
forced certain elements of the native stock into occupations where wages
are low in comparison with the standard of living. This has, perhaps,
especially come about through the increased competition which the
foreign born have offered to the native white element. The foreign born
have taken rapidly all the places which might be filled by unskilled
labor and many of the places filled by skilled labor. The native born
have shrunk from this competition and have retired for the most part to
the more socially honorable occupations, such as clerkships in business,
the professions, and the like. In many of these occupations, however, as
we have already said, the wages are low as compared with the standards
of living maintained by that particular occupational class; hence, as we
have already said, later marriages and fewer children.
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