ABSTRACT
Existing American population policy largely rests on two documents crafted during the presidency of Richard Nixon. On the domestic side, the 1972 Report of the President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future provided the historic rationale for an aggressive federal campaign in favor of birth limitation and against the dreaded "third" American child. In 2003, the threat and reality of depopulation—once dismissed as rightwing fantasies—have gone mainstream. Social Democrats have relied on their version of the materialist argument to justify a massive socialization of family functions and childcare costs as the way to encourage more births. Modern Malthusians have used the Chicago School explanation to argue that their project focused on birth limitation is in harmony with social evolution and economic growth. Australian demographer John C. Caldwell began to suspect that ideas and values, more than economic incentives, lay behind fertility decline.
