In 2013 the population of the United States grew by .71%, just about the replacement rate:
An aging Baby Boomer population and slower immigration combined for nearly stagnant U.S. population growth in 2013 as the total number of residents inched up even more slowly than the previous year.
Figures released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau show that growth for the 12 months ending July 1 was 0.71%, or just under 2.3 million people. That’s the slowest since 1937, according to Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, who called this year’s growth “underwhelming.”
Now it might be that if the economy were growing faster so would the population. Or if sectors other than the healthcare sector were growing. My own view is that we’ve just accelerated our transition to reduced immigration a bit. The demographics of Latin America and the Caribbean just can’t support the level of immigration to the U. S. from there we’ve experienced over the last several decades.
However, if this trend continues a number of companies will have a difficult period of adjustment. Their industries will suddenly have become mature and the only way to grow will be to take business away from competitors or diversify (and take business away from companies they aren’t accustomed to competing with).
It looks to me the economy for those in their child-bearing years would be the main factor.
Interesting blurb at the bottom — Puerto Rico has lost about 5% of its population to outward migration since 2004 because of a poor economy. I assume that would have to be migration to the States, without which the States’ numbers would be even poorer.
Not surprising. Gen-X is exiting their prime child-bearing years and the millennials were hit hard by the economy. Plus there’s the general trend of having children later in life.
My question – is this a bad thing? We have diminishing resources and not enough jobs for the people we have. We are going to have to live with less and that includes people.
Read Mark Steyn’s book.
The reality is that most countries have birth rates below replacement, and all countries, except some in Africa and the Middle East, have declining birth rates Manay countries in Europe and East Asia have falling populations. From the UN, it is projected (the low estimate, which is the realistic projectio) that the world’s population will attain a maximum of abiut 8 to 8.5 B around 2030 and thereafter decline.
What population decline means is unknown. But the world’s population will be older, more dependent, less creative and less productive. A decline in living standards is likely with pockets of stupendous wealth and power.
Re Beasley:
In fact, we have expanding resources. Some countries have shortages, but that is entirely due to their own culture and economic policies. Their shortages are entirely self-inflicted. Think Venezula. Read Julian Simons. Erhlich is a charlatan.
We do have a structural unemployment problem. This is due to automation (and its high levels of productivity), and the fact that a significant fraction of the population is genetcally incapable of functioning in our modern economy. And, no, I don’t recommend killing them. We need to put them on the dole permanently. This is simply wealth redistribution. In 19th Century Europr, the rich maintained large households with many servants, which did a geat deal of income redistribution, and exported the rest to the colonies.
Something I think I’ve mentioned before is that in the Late Neolithic there was an obsidian shortage. There was a worldwide trade and all of the ready, inexpensive sources had already been tapped out. Oddly, they began to use copper and then bronze as a substitute for the newly-expensive obsidian.
Copper had been known previously but considered largely useless, its uses pretty much limited to jewelry and coloring.
Another good book, by George Friedman, is “The Next 100 Years,” which goes into population and geopolitical trends and issues.