Public policy by the numbers
New book examines expected shifts in 21st-century U.S. population
Archived article from Oct 15, 1999
By Steve Manas
A new book, "America's Demographic Tapestry: Baseline for the New Millennium" (Rutgers University Press), explores the profound demographic changes taking place in America as the 21st century looms on the fast-approaching horizon.
Edited by James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and Joseph J. Seneca, university vice president for academic affairs, the book is based on the 12 presentations by internationally recognized demographic authorities made during "America's Changing Demographic Tapestry: Public Policy Changes," a 1996-97 public policy forum at the Bloustein School. The series, said Hughes, was "truly exceptional in its scope and depth. These experts explored the public-policy implications emanating from demographic change in America and the world."
Essayists include Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census; Jane S. De Lung, president of the Population Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and Princeton; sociologist Thomas J. Espenshade, faculty associate of the Office of Population Research, Princeton University; Richard C. Leone, president of the Century Foundation, a public-policy research institution; and Rutgers Professor of Sociology David Popenoe, among others. Their essays examine:
--baselines of demographic change and the broad policy framework;
--the ramifications of global demographics;
--immigration and migration;
--demographics, income and economic mobility;
--the great American family dilemma; and
--America in transition.
"America seems beset by the need to respond to immediate exigencies and short-term crises, but beneath the surface of many momentary issues are powerful evolutionary forces whose long-term public policy effects promise to be much more significant," Hughes and Seneca write in their introduction. They call the profound demographic change occurring in the country one of the most important of these forces.
The age, race, ethnicity, household structure, socioeconomic status and geographic distribution of Americans today and in the future all influence public policy. At the heart of the matter, Hughes and Seneca write, are the historic 20th-century fluctuations in fertility and birth patterns.
Since the 1920s, slowdowns and surges in population growth have yielded five broad generations of varying sizes, each of which supports significant changes in American society, the editors believe. These are recognized as the Depression-era "birth dearth," the post-World War II baby boom, the great baby bust, the baby boom echo and the baby bust echo.
As an example, Hughes and Seneca cite these fluctuations' contributions to cycles of school construction, historically fueled by rising and falling birthrates. As the school-age population declines, the pace of construction slows or stops. Municipal officials, faced with empty classrooms, may even consider consolidating and closing schools. Rebounding numbers, on the other hand, bring an accompanying need for increased space. Officials must then weigh the public-policy and fiscal implications of constructing new buildings against the possibilities for expanding and retrofitting the existing physical plant.
These fluctuations also force personnel and curricula decisions as schools seek to hire well-trained teachers or shift the curriculum to reflect the new needs of a changing community, taking into account, for instance, such local demographic patterns as an increase in foreign-born students requiring classes in English as a second language.
Lengthening life expectancies also have many implications. The country's elderly population (seniors 65 and older) has increased elevenfold since 1900, but the growth rate of the young elderly (65-74) will remain fairly static into the first decade of the next century, as the last members of the Depression-era birth dearth turn 65. "The pressures on the Social Security system are far less now than they will be, since the overall elderly pool is now expanding only minimally," the editors write.
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