Froma Harrop: Let's stop focusing on population

Americans are obsessed with population numbers. One reason is that population reports are accompanied by numbers. Numbers give politicians and journalists something concrete to worry about or brag about.

The problem with this approach is that the numbers do not necessarily reflect the concrete reality of the people counted.

In 1960, Americans felt good about their country, with the population reaching 179 million. But with the birth rate falling and population growth slowing, there is talk of a crisis, even though the number of Americans today, 336 million, is almost double what it was in 1960.

The Boston Globe worries that cities like Omaha, Nebraska, and Bakersfield, California, produce far more babies per capita than Boston and Seattle. That’s because highly educated workers are more likely to delay starting a family until their 30s. About 53 percent of Bostonians ages 25 and older have at least a college degree, compared with just under 40 percent of Omaha residents in the same age bracket.

It goes without saying that Boston and Omaha are both wonderful cities, each in their own way.

This count also doesn’t take into account land area. Older coastal cities have tight urban boundaries, while newer inland cities tend to have large areas. Omaha has about 500,000 residents living in an area of about 140 square miles, while Boston’s 675,000 residents are packed into 90 square miles. So it’s easier to live in a suburban environment—where many families prefer to raise children—in a place like Omaha than it is in Boston. Boston has huge, far-flung suburbs outside the city limits that don’t count in this kind of count.

The decline in the number of births also poses problems. Many experts believe that the falling birth rate, combined with increasing life expectancy, will lead to an economic crisis, as fewer young people will be available to support the growing number of retirees.

But another word for problem is “challenge.” One reason for the increase in life expectancy is that Americans are healthier in old age. There’s no denying that for many, 65 is not what it used to be.

Scenic rural areas like Sevier County, Tennessee, are growing rapidly today as older Americans who once vacationed there now want to walk there in retirement, the Wall Street Journal reports. Longtime residents may be frustrated by heavier traffic, but younger, more robust retirees have relatively little need for health care and tend not to have children in school, so they rely less on public services.

Moreover, retirement isn’t what it used to be. The older workforce, defined as Americans 65 and older, has nearly quadrupled since the mid-1980s, according to the Pew Research Center. People 75 and older are the fastest-growing age group in the labor force, with their participation more than quadrupling since 1964.

Of course, these figures also reflect the fact that there are more older people. Many of them have not saved enough for a long retirement and must continue to work. But many healthy “retirees” simply want to stay active.

Today’s Americans tend to have higher levels of education than their parents. Their jobs are less likely to require hard physical labor, which can be taxing on the body. This leads us to “phased retirement,” a trend in which a worker stays with the same employer but works fewer hours.

There is a related phenomenon called “bridge jobs,” that is, jobs in the same sectors that involve a different type of work or fewer hours. An example would be a manager moving into a sales position.

Over the past century, the world’s population has nearly quadrupled, from 1.6 billion to 6 billion. If this trend had continued, it would have led to an environmental catastrophe. The current stagnation of the birth rate would be far preferable.

They have challenges, yes. But everything can be solved,

Froma Harrop is a syndicated columnist. Follow her on Twitter @FromaHarrop.

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