Who Are We - Births Of A Nation, Are Births Replacing Deaths?, Total Fertility: Blacks And Whites, Total Fertility: Ethnic And Racial Detail

We begin this volume on our community of peoples and our education by answering some questions about who we are. We are, first of all, more numerous. Using several panels, we look at population growth over the span of a century. We examine the birth rate, fertility, abortions, and contraceptive practices, and attempt to answer the question: Are we reproducing enough? Fertility is dropping all over the world. What about the United States? Panels are devoted to looking at differences between and among the races and also at different rates of reproduction between and among ethnicities.

Next we look at our age structure and note that we're increasingly older. And not just with every passing day. The age structure of the population is changing. We explore the subject of life expectancy, an aging population, and the implied issue of "dependency" that arises from a "top heavy" population structure. The question we're pursuing is controversial: Are we living too long? Will the young be willing to support us when we're no longer able to work? We supply what looks like a hopeful answer. Whether or not we are enjoying the long lifespan provided us by science and technology will be answered more fully in another volume in this series, Health & Sickness.

We end this chapter by looking briefly at our racial and ethnic composition. We have become much more diverse over the last 100 years — at least as measured by racial and ethnic origins. But the degree to which we have changed is not as dramatic as would appear from the intensity of our political discussions or the color-scape of the advertisements beamed at us. Aspects of our racial/ethnic composition are further explored in virtually every chapter in the remainder of this volume. Here we present an interesting overview — and a forecast some decades out. Change, we note, will be quite gradual.