Introduction

Although the United States is generally thought of as a leader in social policy, when it comes to demographic policy the U.S. is well behind much of the rest of the world.  In 1993, for example, each of 116 countries – about 60% of all nations – had developed and implemented a population policy of some kind.1   Rather than leave their demographic futures to chance, these countries are following the recommendations developed at numerous international conferences to work

Continued population growth is the biggest  obstacle to creating a society that is sustainable in the long run.

actively with international agencies, non-governmental organizations and their own citizens to produce desirable demographic futures.  The United States – a signatory to most population documents encouraging the creation of national population policies – is one of the few countries that supports the creation of population policies in principle, but currently is making no effort to develop its own such policy.

Why is this so?  The simple answer is that most policy makers in the United States consider explicit demographic decision-making anathema to the democratic process.  "It is not up to the government to tell people how many children they can have," reason these legislators. "Childbearing is a deeply personal matter that should be left entirely to the individuals involved." 

The irony here is that by refusing to engage in demographic decision making, policy makers do not escape the task of setting demographic policy – they merely give up the opportunity to set explicit policy.  Policy makers still make implicit demographic decisions everyday – some with enormous consequences – the majority of which occur without the slightest demographic scrutiny. 

Consider that during a typical session Congress might make laws or establish initiatives on family planning and birth control, sex education, teen pregnancy, reproductive rights, immigration, housing, welfare, marriage and taxation.  Collectively these issues have a measurable impact on both the childbearing decisions of Americans as well as the demographic trajectory of the nation.  But, since few of the policies are explicitly designed to effect a demographic change (one exception would be the recent changes in welfare law intended to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing), our political system continues to behave as if demographic decisions can be made, should be made, and are made exclusively by individuals without any influence from government policy.
 
 

The Rockefeller Commission:  The First Attempt at Demographic Policy

Such has not always been the prevailing view among policy makers.  Just over 25 years ago, President Richard Nixon convened the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future to evaluate the challenges posed by continued population growth on our natural and human resources, infrastructure and the activities of the Federal, state and local government.²

In convening this landmark Commission, Nixon was arguing that demography is destiny.  Nixon asserted that the population path of the United States was one of the most crucial influences in determining the needs and characteristics of our nation, and that substantially more attention needed to be paid to it during the construction of public policy.  Referring to the milestone birth of the 200 millionth American in 1967 and the Census Bureau's projection that the United States would add another 100 million people to its population in just 30 years, Nixon asked Congress to consider the consequences of such growth:

"How will we educate and employ such a large number of people?  Will our transportation systems move them about as quickly and economically as necessary?  How will we provide adequate health care when our population reaches 300 million?…Perhaps the most dangerous element in the present situation is the fact that so few people are examining these questions from the viewpoint of the whole society… 

In the governmental sphere…there is virtually no machinery through which we can develop a detailed understanding of demographic changes and bring that understanding to bear on public policy. …the planning which does take place at some levels is poorly understood at others and is often based on unexamined assumptions."³

In executing its charge, the Rockefeller Commission looked at these and other issues, including the effect of population growth on the economy, the ability of the government to provide critical services to a growing population and the consequence of growth for education and health care.  After two years of analysis, the Commission concluded that "no substantial benefits would result from continued growth of the nation's population" and that the United States should "welcome and plan for a stabilized population."⁴

To help meet this goal, the Commission recommended dozens of changes to U.S. policies, many of which were revolutionary, including the adoption of policies designed to achieve and maintain replacement-level fertility (two children per woman) and the imposition of an immigration ceiling of 400,000 a year to keep immigration at its current level.⁵  The Commission also recommended establishing school-based population education and sex programs, promoting adoption, passing the Equal Rights Amendment, providing universal access to contraception (including to minors), liberalizing abortion laws to increase legal access, funding additional contraceptive research, increasing funding for family planning services, gathering more demographic data (including a mid-decade census), strengthening the Office of Population Affairs and creating state-level population offices.⁷

At least two of these recommendations proved politically abhorrent to the conservative Nixon, who responded by dismissing entirely the work of the Rockefeller Commission and removing his support for any of its policy goals and recommendations. Charles F. Westoff, a demographer and the executive director of the Commission, summarized Nixon's dismissal of the Commission in this way: 
 

"The President's response issued in May 1972 was a disappointment at every level.  After some acclaim for the importance of the research for government planning, the President reiterated his personal opposition to abortion and disagreed with the recommendation that contraceptive information and services be made available to minors, on the grounds that this would weaken the family.  No attention at all was directed to the basic analysis of the costs and benefits of population growth and the conclusion that population stabilization was desirable.  In effect, the response was narrowly political and greatly at variance with the concerns about population that the President had expressed less than three years earlier."⁷

Aftermath Nixon's decision to dismiss wholesale fundamentally-sound demographic analysis because of concerns about two policy recommendations was devastating to the population stabilization movement in the United States at that time, and the chilling effects of his decision continue to be felt today.

Transportation is only one of a  myriad of social problems compounded  by continued growth.

First, by dismissing the Commission's recommendations, Nixon stalled a number of insufficient, but nevertheless bold, growth control initiatives, such as freezing immigration levels and offering family planning services in conjunction with population education.  The United States currently has the one of the highest population growth rates of any industrialized country in the world, a reality that might have been changed had the growth control recommendations of the Commission been enacted. 

Second and equally damaging, Nixon's action had the effect of moving explicit demographic goals, such as population stabilization, out of the American political arena. Nixon's abandonment of a Commission of his own making discouraged congressional support, prompting policy makers to abandon population policy and focus instead on managing growth through legislation such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. 

Third, Nixon quelled the desire to pursue rigorous demographic analysis of government policies.⁸  In combination with a pro-growth culture, the United States has pursued an implicit but powerful pro-growth policy.  Fundamental to this policy is a tax code that rewards childbearing and an immigration policy that has more than doubled the annual level of immigration since 1970.  Together these consequences have put the United States on an unsustainable trajectory. 

U.S. fertility during the 1970s was hovering around 1.7 and has since risen to 2.1. Immigration has risen even more dramatically, from approximately 400,000 annual admissions in 1970 to nearly 650,000 annually by 1988.  As a result of legalization provisions immigration reached 1.5 million in 1990. Since then,  immigration levels have hovered between about 800,000 and one million a year with 916,000 legal immigrants arriving in 1996.⁹  Today immigration has replaced native-born fertility as the driving force behind U.S. population growth.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, immigration will constitute the majority share – nearly 60% – of future U.S. population growth.¹⁰

Since 1970 our population has grown more than 30%, from 205 million to 271 million. That increase of 66 million people is the equivalent of adding the current populations of California, New York, and Florida, combined.  At our current rate of growth, the U.S. will number nearly 400 million people by the year 2050.