schematic diagram Source network (the same below)
Zhengguan News reported on December 29 in the Financial Times of the United States. In recent years, the United States is facing the demographic challenge of a total fertility rate below the replacement level, which means that the average life span of the population is longer, the population is aging, the number of newborns is decreasing, and the population of the entire country is gradually decreasing.
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As American adults at this stage choose to have fewer children than previous generations, the United States faces the prospect of slower population growth, which also brings fiscal and economic challenges that cannot be ignored.
To maintain the size of the U.S. population without immigration, the average American woman would need to have 2.1 children. However, the fertility rate in the United States has declined rapidly over the past 15 years, and the current total fertility rate (the average number of children per woman in her lifetime) is about 1.66. In 2007, the total fertility rate in the United States reached 2.12. The decline in birth rates has led to a slowdown in U.S. population growth.
Fertility rate curves for India, Canada, and the United States as of 2021 (from top to bottom)
The size of the U.S. working-age population has been stagnant for more than a decade. If fertility rates continue to decline or stabilize at low levels, the working-age population will soon begin to shrink without significant increases in immigration. This means fewer workers and lower overall economic output, which will also affect per capita economic output and living standards. The shrinking working-age population also poses a challenge to the solvency of the U.S. social security system. If fertility rates continue to decline, the fiscal situation of the U.S. Social Security system will be worse than official government forecasts. The United States is thus playing to its historical advantage: welcoming immigrant labor to create new institutional conditions for thriving.
In the 1980s, fertility rates in the United States and many other high-income countries fell below replacement levels. Since then, fertility rates in other high-income countries have remained well below 2, while the U.S. fertility rate climbed above 2 in the 1990s and remained there through the 2000s. Fertility rates in other advanced economies have remained low, which may indicate that the current low fertility levels in the United States are not an anomaly but will continue, and that the United States needs to be prepared to face the reality of slowing population growth.
In response to the persistently low fertility rate, many countries have implemented policies to encourage childbirth. For example, in 2003, France announced that each baby born would receive a bonus of 800 euros, while in Spain, each baby born would receive a subsidy of 2,500 euros. But such progressive fertility policies, such as expanding the child tax credit, more generous child care subsidies, or expanding paid family leave, will likely have at best only a partial impact on overall U.S. fertility rates, which are unlikely to return to replacement levels in the near future.
To ensure the vitality of the US economy we need to allow more immigrants to enter the United States. America’s demographic outlook makes repairing its broken immigration system even more urgent, with immigration reform being the most obvious and direct policy-level approach. Therefore, Neil Moskowitz, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, believes that in uncertain economic times, the divided Congress in the United States must cooperate with the White House to implement immigration reform when the new Congress convenes in January next year, making it the top issue on the agenda.
(Source: Zhengguan News)
