SOCIAL PROBLEMS ARE GODKIN LECTURE TOPIC

"Democracy must either solve the problem of population or perish," said Gunnar Myrdal, professor of Economics at the University of Stockholm at the New Lecture Hall yesterday afternoon in his introductory lecture to the second series of Godkin lectures this year entitled, "The Population Problem and Social Security."

In this introductory lecture Mr. Myrdal discussed the "Impending Crisis in Western Society," and outlined the general problem that he will discuss in three following lectures.

Mr. Myrdal, who is a member of the Swedish Royal Commission on Population, used Sweden as an example of a typical democratic country with a rapidly declining birth rate. "The impending social and economic results of a declining birth rate will have a great effect on industry, trade, and the labor problem besides the general culture of western Europe," he continued.

"Research has come to the conclusion that each non-sterile family will have to have four children in order to keep the birth rate from falling. Any social change which will bring about this proportion of children per family will involve radical economic changes. The high standard of living in modern democracies must be taken into consideration if any such step is taken."