Population growth rate

“ Great as the increase of population is with which we have been dealing, there are indications that the rate of growth in the most recent census periods is less in many quarters than it formerly was, while there has been a corresponding decline in the birth-rates; and to some extent, though not to the same extent, in the rate of the excess of births over deaths, which is the critical rate of course in a question of the increase of population. ”

“ Industrial countries seriously concerned with high population growth rates in other parts of the world have obligations beyond simply supplying aid packages of family planning hardware. Economic development, through its indirect impact on social and cultural factors, lowers fertility rates. International policies that interfere with economic development thus interfere with a developing nation's ability to manage its population growth. A concern for population grorth therefore be a part of a broader concern of a more rapid rate ecconomic and social development in the developing countries. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of trebling in a generation, the population increased in that period about 20 per cent; and if the growth of towns, and of employments not agricultural, in the same space of time, is sufficient to absorb this increase, there needs not be, and will not be, even if the law does its worst, any increase of subdivision. Now, the towns of France have increased, and are increasing, at a rate far exceeding the general increase of the population. ”

“ But according to the eleventh census the decennial rate of growth of population fell suddenly from over 30%, which the figures had shown between 1870 and 1880, and in every preceding decade of the century, except that of the Civil War, to less than 25%, in spite of an immigration nearly double that of any preceding decade. ”

“ The pattern of sustained high birth rates and declining death rates resulted in high rates of natural increase. Total population increased by 71 percent from 1950 to 1969, whereas the average increase for all other East European Communist countries, excluding the Soviet Union, was 18 percent. The growth rate for 1970 was estimated at 2.7 percent.
Government and Party leaders, voicing the need for greater numbers of people for the building of socialism, supported a continuing high level of population growth. ”

“ In the early years of the present twentieth century, the human population was doubling in about 50 years (from 1500 million in 1900 to 2500 million in 1950, from 1,900 million in 1925 to 3,800 million in 1975) . Had this rate of growth continued for another hundred years the planet's fertile acres would have been fully occupied by jostling crowds with _standing-room only_ signs in the more desirable living spaces. Japan, the United States, several countries of West Europe and China have launched campaigns to reduce net population increase to one percent per year or less. ”

“ In industrial countries, the overall rate of population growth is under 1 per cent, and several countries have reached or are approaching zero population growth. The total population or the industrialized world could increase from its current l 2 billion to about 1.4 billion in the year 2025. ”

“ The Philippines has an average population of 3.5 per cent, one of the highest in the world. At that rate, the present population estimated at 37 million will have increased to 45 million in 1975—just five years from today—and to 53 million by the end of the decade.
There is nothing inherently wrong in rapid population growth. The problem is to increase the rate of national growth over and above population growth. ”

“ The older countries, and the older parts even of a new country like the United States are becoming more and more the centers where populations live and grow, because they are the most convenient places for the general exchange of services with each other among the component parts of a large population, which constitutes production and consumption. A small expenditure of effort in proportion enables such communities to obtain from a distance the food and raw materials which they require. Migration is no longer the necessity that it was.
Decline in Rate of Growth of Population. ”

“ Germany's probable population, say 167,000,000; Great Britain and Ireland's probable population, 135,000,000; while France's probable population in the year two thousand, if it continues to increase only at its present slow rate, will be but 45,000,000. While these forecasts of population cannot be considered certain in any sense, still they are sufficient to show that the growth of modern nations in population is relatively unequal. Inasmuch as the mere element of numbers is one of the greatest factors for the future greatness of any nation, this is a highly important matter. ”

“ More than 90 per cent of this increase is expected in developing regions. Large differences exist among countries in these areas, and the momentum of population growth is higher in Africa than in Latin America or Asia. In some developing countries. such as China, population growth rates are already well below 2 per cent and are expected to fall below 1 per cent by the beginning of the next century. ”

“ A changing age structure helps to set patterns of future population growth. The large number of young people in developing countries means large numbers of future parents, so that even if each person produces fewer children, the total number of births will continue to increase. Population growth can continue to grow for some decades after fertility rates decline to the 'replacement level' of slightly over two children on average per couple. Thus in many nations, high population growth rates over the next few generations are assured. ”

“ Demographic trends among the world's population, which now surpasses 5.4 billion, cannot be overlooked as a factor when we examine important global issues such as economic development and environmental degradation. That is why we do well to observe World Population Awareness Week.
The United States has long recognized that population growth, in and of itself, is a neutral phenomenon. ”

“ For example, population growth may be viewed as a threat in countries where excessive government controls eliminate incentives for farmers and other workers to produce, where housing and health care facilities do not keep pace, or where precious natural resources are used without regard to future needs. Demographic change can also become problematic when a nation fails to anticipate or to respond to such trends as massive urban migration. However, because people are producers as well as consumers, population growth can also be a sign and a source of strength. ”

“ The increase which has taken place in those extended regions since they came under the authority of our Government, should obviously be reckoned as a part of the development and progress of our population, nor is it necessary to complicate the comparison by taking into account the probable natural increase of this acquired population, because we have not the means of determining its rate of advancement, nor the law which governed its progress, while yet beyond the influence of our political system. ”

“ The United States has been a leader in efforts to focus attention on population issues—particularly in less developed nations where population growth and related demands for land, public services, and other resources have exceeded their availability. At the Houston Economic Summit, the G—7 leaders stated that "In a number of countries, sustainable development requires that population growth remain in some reasonable balance with expanding resources. ”

“ There will hardly be any change in this particular here, before our numbers have reached 60 persons to a square mile. Perhaps when we consider the remarkable fertility of the larger part, not before we have reached 100: but with the former limit, our country would contain 100 millions of inhabitants, in three periods of doubling, or in 75 years. Some doubts have been entertained whether our future increase will not diminish in an increasing ratio; and a very general error as to the rate of increase, exhibited at the last census, has favored that opinion. ”

“ In its application to the problem before us, it may be stated that if the population for 1910 shall be found to conform to the general trend of increase in the population since the first census was taken, we may feel certain that it will come out about 89.7 millions. If, on the other hand, it shall be found to conform more nearly to the growth made in the last few decades, it will be about 91.3 millions. Of course, there is always the possibility that the case may be an abnormal one and that the growth of our country will be found to conform to no formula which represents its past growth. ”

“ It will be noticed that the figures just given involve such a decrease in the percentage of growth. A simple differentiation of the formula gives as the percentage of increase of the population per decade 32 per cent, in 1790, 24 per cent, in 1880, 13 per cent, in 1990, while in one thousand years it will have sunk to a little less than three per cent. But according to the formula this percentage of increase will become zero, or the population become stationary, only after the lapse of an indefinite period. ”

“ In the twenty-one years that remain of the present century, if our population keep on increasing at the rate which it has maintained since the institution of the government, with the exception of the decade which included the civil war, there will be an addition to our present population of something like forty-five millions, an addition of some seven millions more than the total population of the United States as shown by the census of 1870, and nearly half as much again as the present population of Great Britain. ”

“ A continuance of the rate of increase in population which prevailed in the early nineteenth century would have resulted, in the near future of the western world, in an over-population problem as serious as that now confronting China or India. ”

“ In some other countries, and particularly in France, the improvement of agriculture gains ground still more decidedly upon population, because though [pg 485] agriculture, except in a few provinces, advances slowly, population advances still more slowly, and even with increasing slowness, its growth being kept down, not by poverty, which is diminishing, but by prudence. ”

“ Thus the war, which was the greatest depopulator since the epidemic of the Middle Ages, caused “only a momentary hesitation in the steady onward march of population growth.” If we take any given land area of fixed limits, there must necessarily be an upper limit to the number of people it can support, but this limit will be approached asymtotically and the most rapid rise will be midway between the upper and lower limit, namely, at that point where half the possible resources of subsistence have been drawn upon and utilized. ”

“ In one decennium such a town may, owing to brisk trade, have a rapid increase of working population with many children, and in the next decennium in consequence of emigration or transmigration there may be little or no increase. The declining birth-rate, which is having a greater effect on the number of population than the declining death-rate, is another cause of disturbance which increases the difficulty in forming a correct estimate of the population in intercensal periods. ”

“ The growth of our population has now brought us, in the destined career of our national history, to a point at which it well behooves us to expand our vision over the vast prospective.
The successive decennial returns of the census since the adoption of the Constitution have revealed a law of steady, progressive development, which may be stated in general terms as a duplication every quarter century. ”