Fertility 'milestone'

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33032, 27 September 1972, Page 13

Fertility 'milestone'

By

JACK ROSENTHAL,

of the New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.)

WASHINGTON, September 25. For the first time in recorded history, fertility in the United States has dropped to the replacement level— ' the threshold of zero population-growth.

According to new findings by two Federal statistical agencies, the total fertility rate has reached the milestone level of 2.1 children per young woman of childbearing age. If that level continued for about 70 years, it would mean that births would exactly offset deaths and the nation would at last have reached the goal of the Zero Population Growth Movement.

One reason it would take so long is that there are so many more young people now than there are elderly. No-one is willing to predict that the present low level of child-bearing will, in fact, occur. On the contrary, demographers assume that the (birthrate can swing up as ■ suddenly as it has swung down in the last five years. However, this is certainly the first time that the fertil-

ity rate has reached the replacement level for as long as six months. A new census bureau survey of birth expectations taken in June and published this week shows that married women aged between 18 and 24 can expect to have an average of 2.3 children each. If this is adjusted for women who are single and for a possible overstatement of birth expectations, it would translate into the symbolic number of 2.1 children. The number of actual births has dropped too; total births in the first half of 1972 had dropped a full 9 per cent over last year, even though there are 3 per cent more women of childbearing age.

America’s general fertility rate, consequently, dropped to 73.1 births per 1000 women aged 15 to 44. That is lower than the full-year figures for any other year. In the low year, 1930, the rate was 75.8 births; in 1957 it was 120.9.

Population projections for the year 2000 have ranged well over 300 million. Continuation of the present trend until then would mean a population, including immigrants, of about 270 million. It is now about 209 million. The present figure might be depressed slightly also in the short run because the proportion of young women who stay single is increasing. Demographers assume that just as many women will marry eventually as do now, but later marriage and later child-bearing would slow population growth.