ABSTRACT
In trying to foresee future trends, the surest approach is simply to project present trends forward assuming the future will resemble the past and present. This approach has not always worked well in the twentieth century. The early postwar period witnessed an utterly unexpected rise in fertility, the “baby boom,” which ended equally unexpectedly in the 1960s. As the economists acknowledge, low population growth resulting in an aging population will also restrict rates of economic growth. The Census Bureau for years has published three population projections labeled “high,” “medium,” and “low.” Whatever impetus the cultural innovations of the 1960s may have provided, the lower fertility prevailing since represents the resumption of a longstanding trend suggesting that social analysts who once argued that modern society was inherently inimical not only to large families but to parenthood itself may have been right in the long run.
