HOW TO INFLUENCE FERTILITY: THE EXPERIENCE SO FAR

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HOW TO INFLUENCE FERTILITY: THE EXPERIENCE SO FAR
An NPG Forum Paper
by John R. Weeks
September 1990

This is the tenth in a series of NPG FOR papers exploring the idea of optimum population—what would be a desirable population size for the United States? Without any consensus even as to whether the population should be larger or smaller, the country presently creates its demographic future by inadvertence as it makes decisions on other issues that influence population change.

The approach we have adopted is the “foresight” process, We have asked specialists in various fields to examine the connection between alternative population futures and their fields of interest. In this issue of the FORUM, Dr. Weeks discusses how fertility might be consciously influenced if the nation should conclude that lower fertility is desirable.

Dr. Weeks is Professor of Sociology and Director of the International Population Center at San Diego State University. He is the author of the text Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues (Belmont: Wadsworth), now in its fourth edition. Currently, he is completing a federally funded research project on infant health outcomes among low-income immigrants in California.

-Lindsey Grant, Editor

Introduction

The population of the United States is currently growing at a rate of one percent per year—well below the world average rate of 1.8 percent. The average number of children born per woman is, as is well known, right at two—a level that is just below replacement. Less well understood is the fact that the number of births each year in the United States is considerably higher than the number of deaths, owing to the demographic momentum built into the age structure. In 1990 American women were giving birth to 3.8 million babies, while 2.1 million people of all ages were dying. Thus, we are increasing by 1.7 million people each year just from natural increase. Net legal migration is estimated to be 600,000 and an additional 200,000 undocumented immigrants are also augmenting the total population.’ The population of the United States thus continues to grow by more 2.5 million people each year. In less than two years this country adds as many people as there are in Norway, and it would take only four years for the annual growth in the United States to equal the total population of Sweden. Some people react to such numbers with alarm because they think the rate of growth is too low—how can business expand when markets are not increasing at as rapid a pace as in the past? Others react to the numbers with a potentially xenophobic concern about the balance between natural increase and immigration—shouldn’t the birth rate be higher so that the rate of growth would be composed of a higher fraction of native-born babies and fewer imported workers? Still, others react to the U.S. growth rate by noting that the average American consumes a vastly disproportionate share of the world’s resources and so the impact of population growth in this country is far greater in the long run than is true of population growth in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.

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