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KINGSLEY DAVIS
ZPG as a Goal
a U.S.
Actually, Frejka found that, with migration excluded, population
rates next twenty
fixed from 1965 would require age-specific birth during the
if experienced woman
years which, by each during her reproductive life,
would yield an average of 1.2 children per woman. However, not all women
bear children. Among white women in the U.S. in 1960, some
aged 35 to 39
15.5 percent had either never married or never borne a child. So, in Frejka's
fixed population, each woman who did have a child could bear, on the
average, 1.4 children?a mean that could be reached if 60 percent had one
child and 40 percent had two. Put in these terms, instantaneous ZPG does
not sound so As for "disruption to society," the resulting
frightening.
fluctuation in school-age children would be less than that actually experi
enced in the past. During the twenty years from 1950 to 1970 the number
of children aged 5 to 19 in continental United States shot up from 34.9
million to 59.5 million, a 70 increase. In Frejka's
percent hypothetical
calculations of ZPG beginning in 1965, the most drastic change in children
to 1990,
of this age would be that of the twenty-five-year period from 1965
when the number would fall by 41.5 percent.
In trying to discredit immediate ZPG, the Population Establishment
was a straw man, because ZPGers, so literal-minded,
arguing against scarcely
would have been happy to see ZPG achieved within their lifetime. But
not content with them over the head for wanting ZPG
hitting presumably
the Establishment buffeted them for the as well,
instantaneously, opposite
for supposedly wanting it in the indefinite future. "Zero growth," said
Notestein, "is . . . not a desirable it is the in a
simply goal; only possibility
finite world. One cannot object to people who favor the inevitable."6 The
answer to this was
given by Judith Blake:7
manner of all sorts
By this reasoning, the human effort to control the time and
of inevitabilities?the effort expended on postponing death, maintaining houses,
18 KINGSLEY DAVIS
saving money?is all pointless. The spokesmen for ZPG do not argue that a
never come about without ZPG policy, but rather
stationary world population will
that, without directed effort, zero will occur after human numbers
growth only
have greatly increased over present levels, and perhaps then by the mechanism
of high mortality instead of fertility control.
Actually, there are three questions involved here. First, since "life ex
is an average, can the age distribution vary independently of
pectancy"
that average? The answer is yes, because it is affected by the skew in deaths
by age. Suppose, for example, that in a stationary population everybody
died at exactly age 70. The proportion of the population under age 15
would be 21.4 percent, and over 60, 14.3 percent. Even assuming a
probable
distribution of deaths by age, would the age structure of a ZPG populatiqn
be highly abnormal? Table 1 shows the age structure of the U.S. population
under two assumptions?that ZPG starts immediately, and that it is reached
sometime between 1995 and 2000. In either case, not only is the
proportion
aged 65+ considerably less than that found in West Berlin now and close
to that found in Sweden, but the distribution is favorable to
especially
economic because of the high proportion of in the pro
production people
ductive ages. Third, would the age distribution of a ZPG population "dis
the normal of the no. There seems to be no
rupt workings society"? Again
correlation between the age structure and political outlook. The age dis
tribution of the USSR is very similar to that of the USA; socialist Sweden
20 KINGSLEY DAVIS
Table 1
The big difference in age structure is not between one industrial country
and another, with or without ZPG, but between industrial and nonindustrial
countries. This is demonstrated in Table 1 by comparing Honduras with
the other countries. In Honduras only 40 percent of the is in the
population
ages compared to 58 in Sweden and 57 percent in West
productive percent
Berlin. ZPG would the in the ages.
place highest proportion productive
What has happened, then, to ZPG as a goal? In the end the Establish
ment, in the form of the U.S.
Population Commission, ZPG as its
professed
but without the term or its immediate attainment:
goal, using endorsing
Recognizing that our population cannot grow indefinitely, and appreciating the
of now toward the stabilization of the Com
advantages moving population,
mission recommends that the nation welcome and plan for a stabilized pop
ulation.16
This was a remarkable victory for the ZPG movement in six years, but of
course it did not mean consensus.
benign Much goal conflict remained
hidden, to emerge only when means were considered.
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH 21
that women should be free to determine their own fertility, [and] that the matter
of abortion should be left to the conscience of the individual concerned, in con
sultation with her . . .20
physician.
II
In the last few years declines in birth rates have given heart
spectacular
to the leaders of the population
movement. In the United States, for ex
women to 44 a in 1957, then
ample, the births per 1000 aged 15 reached peak
fell until, in 1972, the rate was
only 60 percent of the 1957 figure. This has
led to widespread elation that our fertility has reached, or fallen slightly
below, a rate. are now 2.04 children per
replacement "Couples averaging
family," said the Population Crisis Committee in March, 1973, "which is
below the 2.11 child replacement rate." However, the Committee knew that
this meant zero in the "stable not in the actual,
growth only population,"
sense, for it added: "If this rate continues for some 70 years, U.S. population
would stabilize or even decline slightly." There
is no likelihood whatever
that a fertility rate found in one year will continue for 70 years, and there
is no way to find out what it will in fact do. To know how many children
"
are one would have to follow to the end of their
"couples averaging couples
which would take too A way to get some indica
reproductive period, long.
tion in advance is to ask young how many children intend to
people they
have. This was done most the Census Bureau in June, 1972.
recently by
The expectations, the lowest on record, led the Bureau to the conclusion
that women 18 to 24 years old in 1972 might "complete their childbearing
an woman
with average of about 2.1 births per [which] approximates 're
"21The is that since expectations have
placement level fertility.' only trouble
in the past, they may change in the future. Indeed, the current
changed
cohorts of young people may have been unduly influenced by the nihilistic
mood of the period from 1964 to 1972; the new ones coming along may be
more favorable to the family. This possibility is suggested by actual fertility
trends.
In the decline of fertility in the United States after 1957, the lowest
rate was reached in of 1972, when the seasonally adjusted
monthly July
rate women
general fertility (births per 1000 aged 15 to 44) was 68.2. In
the nine later months for which data are available, the rate has been slightly
Such a of direction is what one would expect, because in all
higher. change
industrial countries the birth rate since 1920 has exhibited a strongly
character. Also, in the twenty-one of these countries for which
cyclical
recent data are available, the trend in the crude birth rate between 1970
and 1971 was, on the average, upward.
The drop in the American birth rate was particularly sharp between
1970 and 1972, when the new state abortion laws came into effect. Liberal
abortion laws permit women who become pregnant through carelessness,
to offend a or desire to get married an
unwillingness boyfriend, opportunity
to remedy their mistake. This effect is limited, however, and of itself cannot
a downward new
keep exerting pressure on fertility. The main effect of the
abortion laws was probably to postpone two or three years the
by cyclical
rise in American fertility.
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH 25
Not only are industrial countries at present far from a zero rate of
natural increase, but they are receiving large numbers of migrants from
the less developed countries. Thus in the United States in 1972, when the
birth rate was at its lowest ebb, the
population increased by 1,628,000
people, of whom 1,290,000 derived from more births than deaths and
338,000 from net migration. As long as the less developed two-thirds of the
world continues to increase its
population at a rapid rate, the pressure on
the developed third to receive massive immigration will be
enormous. Are
official policies likely to bring ZPG in the latter countries?
The spectacular decline of birth rates in many less developed countries
is taken as evidence of successful population For
frequently policy. example,
in eight countries (Ceylon, Chile, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, Jamaica, Taiwan,
and Trinidad), between 1960 and 1970, the crude birth rate fell, on the
average, by 27 percent. However, as is usual in
citing such statistics, these
countries were selected because in their data are reliable,
general reasonably
which means that on the whole they
are more advanced than most under
countries. It is in such countries?those on the verge of
developed precisely
the fastest declines in oc
becoming urban-industrial?that fertility have
curred. This suggests that the declines are caused social
being by changing
and economic conditions rather than by family-planning In fact, it
policy.
seems to make little difference whether the country has a major family
or not, or, if it does have one, when it In Taiwan,
planning program began.
where there is a much publicized quasi-official program,
family-planning
the birth rate dropped by 29 percent between 1960 and 1970, but in
Trinidad, where there is no such program, the birth rate fell from almost
the same level 38 in Taiwan the family
exactly by percent. Furthermore,
planning program did not get started until 1964, before which time the drop
in fertility was
already rapid. It is hard to escape the conclusion that official
of the sort
programs being adopted around the world have little to do with
the trend of birth rates. To be sure, most of the decline is due to the use
of contraception, abortion, and sterilization, but the public, if it wishes to
limit births, will find a way to get the means; if it does not wish to limit
births, no official program for providing services will lead it to do so.
If family-planning even when broadened somewhat as they
policies,
have been in the last few years, are not likely to about ZPG, then
bring
additional and more drastic measures may be Before to
required. hastening
such measures, however, we first make an to rethink
imagine might attempt
the problem.
References
2. Ansley J. Coale, "Should the United States aStart for Fewer Births?"
Campaign
Population Index, 34 (October-December ), 467. This was Coale's
1968
presidential
address to the Association of America, the organization of
Population professional
in the United States.
demographers
12. Coale, "Should the United States Start a for Fewer Births?"
Campaign p. 471.
This statement was in and the American
paraphrased Population Future, p. 62.
19. Office of the Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences, Rapid Population
Growth (Baltimore: Press, 1971), p. 93.
Johns Hopkins