Ban my account ffs!
snowguy716
Atlas Star
Posts: 22,632
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« on: January 10, 2008, 07:17:23 PM » |
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Many demographers were predicting by the mid-30s that the U.S. population would peak sometime during the 1950s and then begin to fall because the birthrate had been falling for decades and was nearing the replacement level. The number of births fell from about 1925-1933, before stabilizing. they remained at a pretty low level until 1947, and then BOOM.. the baby boom started. Births rose from 2.7 million to nearly 4.4 million between 1945 and 1957. Births then fell gradually to 3.7 million by 1970 and then plummeted to just over 3.1 million by 1973.
Then they began rising again, peaking again at 4.1 million in 1990, falling slightly, and then slowly rising again.
While another baby boom is unlikely, it is possible that our population could be VERY different than the predictions. Demographers were predicting a shrinking population by 1960 and yet the 1950s brought the largest population growth in several decades, and this was without any appreciable immigration.
Fertility rates among women rose from about 2.2 to 3.2 before falling to 1.7 in the early 1980s, and have since risen to just about 2.1, the replacement rate. This compares to a rate of 1.3 in Germany. A rate of 1.3 means that for every 200 parents, there will be only 130 children.
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