300 Million and Many More...
by Tyler LePard
October 17, 2006 - 11:46am (Print)
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the United States population reached 300 million this morning. (Check their population clock to see the current projection for this very minute; stay on the page for a bit and you can watch the numbers continue to increase.) You've probably been hearing about how this relates to immigration, the environment and the economy - but how does this affect reproductive health?
The anti-family-planning organization, Population Research Institute (PRI) has been issuing newsletters on the population projection for the past couple of months, contradicting most experts and focusing on positive spin about rapid population growth, urban sprawl, and Americans' energy use. PRI opposes contraception and funding for family planning; their idea of reproductive health fits in the Andrew Pollard category of anti-immigration doom & gloom about decreasing birthrates.
Now, don't get me wrong - urban sprawl and Americans' overuse of resources are cause for concern. The environment does affect families and attitudes about creating families, which affects reproductive health. But there are also explicit reproductive health aspects to population growth. On Friday, Andrea provided some excellent reasons to rethink "overpopulation," giving thoughtful examination to the effects of population growth and control. Another RH angle to consider is that women immigrants often don't have access to reproductive health services.
For more resources on the U.S. population growth: PlanetWIRE has a feature article on important U.S. indicators that relate to population growth. The Population Reference Bureau addresses how the U.S. has changed since it was a country of 200 million (helpful charts are included in this article). The U.S. Census Bureau shares fun facts that compare the U.S. at 300 million, with our country at 200 million and 100 million (such as the price of specific goods and demographics). Breathing Earth provides an interesting visual demonstration of global births and deaths (as well as CO2 emissions), allowing comparison between specific countries. For analysis on the environmental impact, check out the Center for Environment and Population's (CEP) newly released U.S. National Report on Population and the Environment.
RH Reality Check will continue to cover population developments as they relate to reproductive health.
To piggyback one of the issues you raise, in a recent NPR interview, Linda Jacobsen, director of domestic programs, Population Reference Bureau Census Bureau, talked about some demographics that would seem to counter the anti-contraceptive’s “doom & gloom” spin on decreasing birthrates.
“Children will still outnumber the elderly every year between now and 2050, and that’s true even in 2030, when the last of the Baby Boomers move into the retirement ages of 65+,” Jacobsen said.
Good call, Loren.
I had a related thought earlier today when I read PRI's press release about this. At what point are these groups going to say "Ok...The population is now large enough?" They love using the argument that medicare and social security are underfunded as a sort of scare tactic, but since when is the sensible answer to that problem to simply have more babies and create more workers (read "sheer volume of people," not "new jobs")?
Is the answer that it just doesn't matter because the "End Times" are coming and we'll all be gone before we need 2 billion Americans to sustain social security at the numbers we'd like to see? These guys are Catholics though, and I didn't think they're as prone to go in for that one...
In any case, they can't be taken seriously on this one in even the most remote sense -- their arguments are absolutely inane.
Ian, seems you are setting the trend, calling the declining population growth doomsayers "silly." Ran across this American Prospect post this morning.
In short, it is silly to talk of threats of declining populations due to voluntary decisions by people not to have children. Any impact of rising dependency ratios on living standards can be easily offset by productivity growth.
Jacobsen also raised some interesting data about children in poverty that I think has bearing on why women—and ethnic and racial minority women in particular—need to have more (not less) access and choices in their reproductive health care and family planning tools.
Since 1967, poverty rates for children (17 percent in 1967) have actually increased (18 percent now), a divergence from vastly decreased poverty rates among the elderly. Poverty rates among racial and ethnic minority children are much higher than among white children. (35 percent of African American children are in poverty, 28 percent for Hispanic children, and 10 percent for non-Hispanic white children.)
Jacobsen said the figures, in the context of a growing ethnic and racial diversity among the population as a whole, could mean that, unless things change, a larger and larger share of our children will be growing up at an economic disadvantage.
