The Figure 1.8 May Change the Essence of Our Nation

Once in a while statistics are published that change the essence of a nation: the way the nation sees itself, and the way it is seen by others. In June or July the Census Bureau will publish such a statistic, which is now in numerical limbo--used, but not noticed, and purposely unpublished.

I believe it is a number that will pervade our national consciousness in the 1990s.

Consider this past example of the potency of data: Historian Frederick Jackson Turner looked at numbers from the census of 1890. He made the striking observation that the American frontier had closed, that there was no more “open” land left. That, he noted, represented the end of an era, and would come to change the nature of the frontier-driven American character. How it did is still argued by historians today.

The new census number is 1.8. That is the total fertility rate (TFR) that will be used in the “middle variant” series of the new population projections to be issued by the Census Bureau. Demographic projections are usually issued in three series: “high,” “low” and “middle.” The middle series most closely resembles the current situation. These are the projections that will be used at every level of government from schoolhouse to White House, in every business that plans for the future, by every scholar trying to divine what is going on in this remarkable land of ours.

Roughly, the TFR equals the number of children that a woman, on average, will bear during her life.

The last series of census projections, issued several years ago, used a middle series TFR of 1.9 children per woman, even though the actual TFR in the United States has been 1.8 since 1974.

Why the fuss? At the old 1.9 figure the population will keep rising for almost 100 years (to 2080), though at a minuscule rate by the end of that time. At 1.8, however, the population will begin to shrink in the first few decades of the next century.

That the Census Bureau people will go with the new number is certain: They have already used it in some tables in the new Statistical Abstract of the United States, and in displays shown to a public Senate committee hearing on Social Security.

Under the new projections, how much will the population fall, and how soon? For that we must await the official census report and see what estimates are used for immigration and other components of change. In my 1987 book “The Birth Dearth,” I used some World Bank projections keyed to a 1.815 TFR. That showed U.S. population growth more or less plateauing shortly after 2020 and beginning to drop shortly after 2030.

What does it mean? Not that we’ll “run out of people.” We won’t.

But consider the sea-change at work: For two centuries this country had an incredible population explosion. From 1790 to 1990 the population will have gone up from 4 million to 250 million. And now an official government document will project the beginning of a population decline!

A projection is not a prediction; the numbers could turn out to be higher or lower. Still, I believe that the change in psychology can be and should be enormous. America has always seen itself as synonymous with growth; it has been seen that way around the world. No more.

That change, which the Census Bureau now notes, will be felt personally by scores of millions of Americans, by foreign-policy strategists, by every conceivable business--starting in earnest in the 1990s.