The Malthusian Score

Confronting the relentless arithmetic of human reproduction is a bit like reading one of Futurist Herman Kahn's nuclear scenarios. One of them deals in "mega-deaths," and the other in what might be called "mega-lives," but the pall of a weirdly objectified apocalypse hangs over both. By the year 2000, some accountants of population figure, the number of the planet's inhabitants will double to 7 billion; by 2025, it will be 15 billion, by 2050, 30 billion, so that in less than a century there will be ten people living for every one now existing.

Unless, of course, something is done to slow this geometrical breeding. In the U.S., at least, there is evidence that while the nation is still far from achieving the ideal of zero population growth --the birth rate is still twice the death rate--the multiplication is declining. According to the Census Bureau, the ratio of children under five years old born to women in their fertile years was the lowest in March 1969 since the end of World War War II. The figure may indicate in part that more women are simply waiting longer to have children, but the 26% decline in the ratio during the 1960s was the most rapid within a decade in the nation's history. Among other things, the drop could mean at least temporary relief for all of the communities that have been scrambling for years to provide sufficient classroom space for their increasing numbers of children. It may also indicate that a cautious new psychology of family planning and reproduction is taking hold.

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