Population: Babies Mean Business

From the issue dated Aug. 9, 1948 - If business analysts didn’t follow the birth rate quite as feverishly as they did reports on car loadings or weekly steel production, the figures which came periodically from the National Office of Vital Statistics during the 1930s nevertheless gave them pause. What they showed was that comparatively few Americans were having children; in fact, with the birth rate hovering at .98 (meaning that each 100 girls born in America would have only 98 daughters) the nation actually was failing to reproduce itself.

Since Colonial days, the population of the United States had kept steadily increasing. Now the curve was flattening out. The prospect was that without immigration the population would reach its peak of around 148,000,000 by the year 1970 and then start decreasing at the rate of 2 percent each generation.

Although business analysts on the whole could usually whip up more enthusiasm for charts and graphs than for the patter of little feet, the prospect of a declining population dismayed them. For the nation’s economy had always been predicated upon an expanding population—an ever-increasing domestic market, with its attendant demand for ever-increasing investment.

Moreover, logically there was little reason to expect any sharp upturn in the birth rate. Immigrants had always had more babies than native-born Americans—but immigration had been shut off. Couples with comparatively little education had always had more babies than high-school and college graduates—but the educational level of the country was rising. Farmers had always had more babies than city people, and Southerners more than Northerners—but the shift in population within the continental United States was from country to city and from South to North.

On top of that, both the knowledge and the use of contraceptives were growing.

BOOM IN BIRTHS
Yet last week, in spite of the gloomy predictions of the’30s and in spite of logic, the business analysts had cause for optimism. Human nature, being just plain cussed, had simply disregarded all the carefully drawn population curves, and the United States was enjoying an unprecedented boom in babies.

In 1933 only 2,312,000 children were born. In 1940 the number was 2,360,399.  In 1946 it jumped to 3,470,000, the highest in the nation’s history. In 1947 it went still higher—to 3,910,000. This year, although it might fall below that new record, it would still be greater than in 1946.

By 1950 youngsters under 15 would be the largest single population group in the country.

The average birth rate since 1942 had bee 1.29—31 points above that of the ‘30s. If this rate continued indefinitely, the population of the United States would increase 29 percent each generation. It would almost double within three generations.

Strangely enough, the rise in the birth rate was greater among the educated than among the uneducated, among urban dwellers than among rural dwellers, among whites than among Negroes. It was greater in the North than in the South. The differences in the number of children produced by the various groups in the nation’s population apparently was disappearing.

The unprecedented boom in babies had already increased the population by 12,000,000 in the seven years between 1940 and 1947. Now 144,000,000, the population was expected to reach 148,000,000 by 1950—twenty years before the experts of the ‘30s had estimated that it would. And, whereas those experts had believed that 148,000,000 would be the maximum, the latest forecast was 164,500,000 by 1990.

Nor was this forecast made with any expectation of the present boom continuing. No one expected that. The children of the ‘30s were beginning to reach marriageable age. Since they had been relatively few in number, even if the birth rate continued at its 1947 level, they would have relatively few children themselves—and the birth rate was as likely as not to fall. However, when the babies of the ‘40s came of age in the United States would probably witness another boom in births.

What caused the postwar boom? Obviously, the increase in marriages during wartime had been a principal factor, but some experts believed there might be still another reason. They believed the historical trend in the United States toward smaller and smaller families might have been reversed. As evidence, they cited the fact that, although the boom in babies started with first babies, it soon affected the number of second, third, fourth, and even seventh babies, which had also bee on the increase.

The first result of the boom was to overtax the nation’s hospitals and schools and to aggravate the housing shortage:

• In 1936 only 831,500 children were born in the nation’s hospitals. The number rose to 1,214,492 in 1940, to 2,136,373 in 1946, and to 2,837,139 last year. Already overburdened, doctors and hospitals found themselves hard put to care for the increase. Typical was the situation in Chicago, where the Evangelical Hospital alone last year was forced to refuse 50 maternity cases monthly.
• With the children born in the early years of the war now entering school, enrollments were beginning to spurt. They went from 23,657,000 in 1946 to 23,832,000 in 1947 and were expected to reach 24,373,000 this year and 25,129,000 next. When the postwar crop reached school age, the situation would really grow acute. The estimated public-school enrollment for 1953 was 28,930,000; for 1955 it rose to 31,393,000; and for 1957 it was 33,561,000.
• Owing to differences in how they made their calculations, experts differed on precisely how the boom in babies had affected the housing situation. Some put the need for new housing which the rise in population was creating as low as 400,000 unites annually; others, as high as 900,000 annually. The majority, however, thought between 500,000 and 550,000—as many as there were in the city of Los Angeles—would be needed to care for the annual increase.

BOOM IN TRADE
Economically, the boom in babies had the inevitable effect of sparking corresponding booms in every industry supplying the products that children need:

• According to Women’s Wear Daily, an estimated $225,000,000 was spent on clothing for infants and children in 1939.  By 1944 the amount had almost doubled—to $420,000,000. In 1946 it was $700,000,000; and last year it was even higher.
• According to The Chicago Sun-Times, sales of prepared baby foods rose from 400,000 cases in 1934 to 2,700,000 cases in 1941 and to 15,000,000 last year.
• The sale of recordings for children rose from 2,000,000 in 1941 to more than 30,000,000. Some half-dozen new companies entered the children’s record field in the first six months of 1947 alone.
• Despite the shortage of materials, the number of toy companies doubled between 1942 and 1947.
• Production of juvenile furniture in 1947 was 54 percent above 1946, which in turn was 39 percent above 1944.
• Production of children’s books also swelled. The three major magazines for the very young—Child Life, Jack and Jill, and Children’s Activities—had combined circulations of 1,300,000 last year.

AND A BOOM TOMORROW
Looking into the future, business analysts predicted that eventually the boom in babies would have salutary effects on every corner of the nation’s economy. Joseph S. Zeisel of the Division of Business Economics of the National Industrial Conference Board declared: “One important aspect ... is the food situation ... The population bulge may remove the edge from the problem of farm surpluses.”

Similarly, P.K. Whelpton, associate director of the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems at Miami University, reported to the Department of Commerce:

“When the number of persons is rising rapidly it is necessary to prepare for the increase. Houses and apartments must be built; streets must be paved; power, light, water, and sewer systems must be extended; existing factories, stores and other business structures must be enlarged or new ones erected; and much machinery must be manufactured.

“These activities and the many others which are needed to meet the expansion of demand caused by the additional consumers have a twofold and extremely important series of effects on the national economy. First, by requiring large investments of funds, they help to maintain interest rates, encourage savings, and facilitate the accumulation of wealth. Second, by furnishing jobs for a  large number of people, they tend to keep unemployment at a minimum and to maintain average per capita earnings and ability to consume.

“The result is the maintenance of high levels of employment, production, and prosperity.”

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