Chapter 16. The Cause and Effect of a Small Generation
Of all the factors that effect demography, the most important are total birthrate and total fertility rate. The United States is currently the only Western country with a total rate of fertility that is above replacement level. But what is replacement level?
Well, let’s assume there are ten couples on a deserted island. If they want to maintain a constant number of people on the island, how many children must each couple have? The answer is two. What if one of the couples proves to be unable to have kids? Then how many kids will the remaining couples have to have to maintain the population? The answer is 2.2. This is the total fertility rate. What if two of the men decide to pair off or ...
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