Our Demographic Future: Why Population Policy Matters to America

Notes

1. United Nations, Global Population Policy Database 1993, (New York: Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Population Division, 1995), p. 197.

2. Richard M. Nixon, "Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth (July 18, 1969)." Public Papers of the Presidents, No. 271, (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives, 1970), p. 527.

3. Richard M. Nixon, "Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth (July 18, 1969)."  p. 526.

4. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, Population and the American Future, (US Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1972), p. 110.

5. Given a fertility level of 2.1, an immigration level of 400,000 a year would actually be too high to achieve the Commission's goal of population stabilization. This figure was politically motivated, as we discuss later in this paper.

6. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, pp. 141-147.

7. Charles Westoff,  "The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future: Its Origins, Operations and Aftermath," Population Index, Vol. 39  No. 4, (Princeton, NJ: Office of Population Research, Princeton University, October 1973), p. 501.

8. Environmental impact statements, legislated under the National Environmental Policy Act, require a demographic component, but such statements usually treat population as an immutable factor and not subject to change through government policy.

9. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, "Immigrants Admitted by Major Category of Admission: Fiscal Years 1994-96," 1998 (via www).

10. Day, Jennifer Cheeseman, "Population Projections of the United States by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1995 to 2050", U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P25-1130, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1996, p. 23.

11. Daniel P. Moynihan, Toward a National Urban Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1970), pp. 3-25.

12. Lyndon Johnson,  "Remarks at President's Committee on Population and Family Planning," Public Papers of the Presidents, (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives, 1965).

13. Richard M. Nixon, "Remarks at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation (December 8, 1969)," Public Papers of the Presidents, No. 480, (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives, 1970), p. 1002.

14. U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Statistics Annual Report 1996, Washington, DC, 1996, p. 8.

15. U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality: 25th Anniversary Report, Washington, DC, 1995, p. 516.

16. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Population Division release PPL-57, "United States Population Estimates, by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin 1990 to 1996"; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P25-1045.

17. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 1995, Washington, DC, 1996, p. 9.

18. Annual Energy Review 1995, pp. 143, 145.

19. Annual Energy Review 1995, p. 9.

20. A. Ann Sorenson, Richard P. Greene and Karen Russ; American Farmland Trust, Farming on the Edge (Center for Agriculture in the Environment, Northern Illinois University), Washington, DC: 1997, Table 7 (via http://farm.fic.niu.edu/foe2/).

21. Farming on the Edge, p. 18 (see note 33).

22. Farming on the Edge, III. Major Findings.

23. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1996  (116th ed), Washington, DC 1996, Tables 28, 43.

24. The variety of causes of habitat loss are referred to throughout Our Living Resources, (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Biological Service, 1995).

25. U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality: 25th Anniversary Report, Washington, DC, 1995, p. 153.

26. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered Species Technical Bulletin, Vol. XII, No. 4, Washington, DC, 1987; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Box Score: Listings and Recovery Plans as of November 30, 1997, Washington, DC, 1997.

27.  "34,000 Species of Plants in 200 Countries Threatened with Extinction First Global Assessment of Plants Rings Alarm Bells Worldwide" (Press Release), World Conservation Union, Species Survival Commission (SSC), Gland, Switzerland, 1998.

28. Suplee, Curt.  "One in Eight Plants Threatened Globally," Washington Post, April 8, 1998, A01.

29.  Warrick, Joby. "Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say," Washington Post, April 21, 1998, A04.

30. The following total fertility rates were used in the calculation of the NPG population projections: 1970-2.00; 1975-1.80; 1980-1.65; 1985-1.50; 1990-1.50; 1995-1.50; 2000-1.50; 2005-1.50; 2010-1.57; 2015-1.63; 2020-1.70; 2025-1.77; 2030-1.83; 2035-1.90; 2040-1.97; 2045-2.03; 2050-2.10.

31. We use the NPG recommendations for one simple reason: the Rockefeller Commission recommendations would not have succeeded in stabilizing the U.S. population. The NPG recommendations will protect the U.S. environment and quality of life by moving the nation toward an optimum population.

32. Figures prior to 1995 are based on actual data. The middle series population projection begins in 1995.

33. Day, Jennifer Cheeseman, "Population Projections of the United States by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1995 to 2050", U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P25-1130, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1996.

34. Davis, James A., and Tom W. Smith. General Social Surveys, 1972-1994: Cumulative File (Computer File), Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research Center, 1994 (Producer). Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley (distributor).

35. Contraception Counts: State-by-State Information, (New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1998).

36. Alan Guttmacher Institute, tabulations of data from the 1988 National Maternal and Infant Healthy Survey, 1993; Henshaw, S.K., "Abortion Trends in 1987 and 1988: Age and Race," Family Planning Perspectives, 24:85-86, 1992, Table 1, p.86 in Sex and America's Teenagers. The Alan Guttmacher Institute. New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994.

37. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1996, Table 91.

38. Whittington, Leslie A., James Alm and H. Elizabeth Peters, "Fertility and the Personal Exemption: Implicit Pronatalist Policy in the United States," The American Economic Review, Vol. 80, Issue 3, June 1990, pp. 545-556.

39. Richard M. Nixon,  "Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth (July 18, 1969),"  p. 530.
 
 

© 1998 by NPG, Inc.  Permission to reprint is granted in advance.  Please acknowledge source and author, and notify NPG. Copies of this publication are available from NPG for $2.50.