Vital statistics of Africans living in Southern Rhodesia, 1948

Abstract

The preliminary results of the second sample survey of the African population, held in 1958, relating to some 14 Native districts afford reason for believing that in these districts the 1948 survey missed a number of adult Africans and suggest that the estimates of the Division of Native Affairs may well be within the sample limits of the true figure. Sex distribution is always one of the important factors influencing the birth rate of a population. Examination of the sex distribution given by the 1948 sample survey reveals nothing unusual in the sex distribution of the Africans. In most populations the sexes are equally distributed unless wars, pestilence or natural disasters have materially upset the equality of distribution. For the provinces concerned the male population represented between 49.0 and 50.3 per cent., and for the whole country 49.7 per cent, of the whole population. For the provinces of Salisbury and Gwelo the sample results do net differ significantly from a 50: 50 distribution of the two sexes.