The Population Surprise
Max Singer
The Hudson Institute
Fifty years from now the world’s population will be declining, with no end in sight.
Because in the past two centuries world population has increased from one billion to nearly six billion, many people still fear that it will keep “exploding” until there are too many people for the earth to support. But that is like fearing your baby will grow to 1,000 pounds because its weight doubles three times in its first seven years.
The U.S. population, because of immigration and a fertility rate that is only slightly below replacement level, is likely to grow from 4.5 percent of the world today to 10 percent of a smaller world over the next two or three centuries.
Read the entire article from The Atlantic Monthly
