The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Babies

ROBERT MacNEIL: There is a baby born every ten seconds in the United States. But in 1956 they were coming at the rate of one every seven seconds. Are babies becoming an endangered species, or is another baby boom around the corner?

Good evening. Yesterday was Mothers` Day. The event made us wonder what`s happening to the institution of motherhood in this country. For some years demographers have remarked that having babies appeared to be going out of style. Last year, for the fifth year in a row, American fertility hit a record low. But today the U.S. Census Bureau reported a slight trend the other way: the birth rate rose for the second month in a row. Tonight, will this nation`s birth rate continue to decline, or is it about to go up again dramatically? In either case, what does it mean for the future of the American family and society? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, despite this very recent increase in the birth rate it`s still on the low side compared to what it was in the post-war baby boom period. This latest upturn puts the fertility rate only slight ly ahead of where it was a year ago, and last year was the low point ever in this country. None of this means that our population is actually declining, however; there are still plenty of babies being born every day -- as Robin said, one every ten seconds. So it`s a question of rates and percentages. Twenty years ago, at the height of the baby boom, women then were having an average of 3.8 babies each. In 1957 alone, 4,300,000 infants were born. Last year the figure was down to 3,128,000. That translates to a 1.76 babies for each woman. Even so, maternity wards in the largest hospitals around the country still play to capacity crowds. But in many cases they`re drawing from other, smaller hospitals that have closed their maternity wards due to a lack of business.

In contrast to the shrinking needs for infant facilities, there`s been a significant increase in institutions to house the elderly: geriatric, nursing and retirement homes. The impact of the lower birth rate is felt in other ways, too. As suburban communities mushroomed during the baby boom years, public schools seemed to spring up overnight -- in some areas, at the rate of one a week. Now those same communities find there are not enough children to fill all those classrooms. Since 1970 the number of children under thirteen has dropped by more than seven and a half million. For example, in the past few years Nassau County, one of New York`s bedroom communities, has closed thirty-nine of its 400 elementary schools. It expects that trend to continue at the rate of four or five school closings a year for the next few years at least. Voters just approved the sale of this closed-down school, which will probably be torn down for real estate development. This one is being used as a vocational training center; various groups rent space in this former elementary school, and the basement is used as a rifle range. And this school, which graduated its last class less than a year ago, now plays host to a dinner theater.

The drop in the birth rate has had many other fallout effects in business, education and :life styles. The company that used to advertise that "Babies are our business -- our only business" has diversified and now sells life insurance, too. The giant among blue jeans manufacturers has broadened its perspective to include pants for spectators with middle age spread. And Campbell`s Soup, which used to cater strictly to the family trade, now puts out a line of single-serving soups.. Robin?

MacNEIL: Demographers say that the recent slight upswing in fertility is a result of the first women of the baby boom years entering their thirties and deciding to have children before it`s too late. One of the women in this situation is Dr. Beth Whelan, a demographer herself and the author of a book called, A Baby? Maybe. Dr. Whelan also founded an organization by that name to counsel people who are trying to decide whether to have children. Dr. Whelan, why did you wait till now to have children?

Dr. BETH WHELAN: My husband and I decided we would have our first child two years after we were married, and then when the two years came the time didn`t seem convenient. I was working, I was enjoying life, `we were traveling a great deal; and I think most important, the fact that I had spent so many years training for my profession -- I didn`t want to give it up at that point. And we kept postponing and postponing.

MacNEIL: Now, you advise women who come to you for advice on whether to have babies or not; how typical is that kind of postponement?

WHELAN: It is quite typical. I think people really are under a great deal of pressure to make the decision today whether or not to have a child. It doesn`t just happen automatically like it used to, and they don`t know how to make the decision, how to evaluate their potential for parenthood, how to decide the right time.

MacNEIL: I was going to ask you, why do people need to come and ask advice on whether to have babies or not?

WHELAN: Because they`re really confused, or they`re in conflict. You know, there`s no reason to assume that when you wait six, seven years that the husband and wife are going to agree on this subject. Indeed, that`s a tremendous problem right now, especially since there are so many second marriages in this country -- the fact that the husband may have children by a prior marriage, does not want to begin again, and the wife is eager to have a baby, say, at age thirty-three; a real conflict. They need someone to come in to help work this out, or the raise the proper questions, anyway.

MacNEIL: So why did you decide now to have a child?

WHELAN: I`d like to say first of all, this has to be one of the best planned babies of this century. (Laughing.) We`ve talked about it for so long. After weighing all the pros and cons, we finally realized there was no convenient time and that we didn`t want to miss the experience, that we would work it out somehow. We don`t have all the answers right now, but we hope to live where we currently live now, in the city; we`re not moving to a house, like we thought we had to. I`m going to continue working at least part time, and we`re going to have life go on.

MacNEIL: And how many children?

WHELAN: For us the answer may be one. It might be a nice compromise between not having any and having a larger family. Right now -I may have to write a second book to decide about a second child. It`s another major decision.

MacNEIL:(Laughing.) What do people say when you say, "I`m going to go on working"?

WHELAN: A lot of people are resentful of me, especially people who themselves have decided not to have children; the feeling that you have to do either one or the other. Now, I think this is one problem that`s holding up a lot of American women. They feel that they might not be fair to do both: to have a child and a career. It doesn`t have to be an either/or situation. Of course you can`t work twelve hours a day if you`re going to have a baby; it`s not fair to the child. A child needs your time. But there are ways of doing a little bit of work and then gradually increasing as the child becomes less dependent -- or, let me tell you, I`m counting on it. (Laughing.)

MacNEIL: Putting on your hat as a demographer again and taking off your hat as a prospective mother, what do you predict for the .future? Do you see the birth rate going up again?

WHELAN: I see a surge in the birth rate coming very soon, but of a different nature, really. I think it will be the result of the fact that women who have postponed having children for so long will be having, I and I am in that category; the idea of couples now having more than two or- three and a return to the trends of the fifties I would see as being very, very unlikely.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, some sociologists have predicted sweeping changes in our social institutions if the current birth rate trends continue, and one such sociologist is Dr. Charles Westoff, who is Director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Doctor, how do you see it? Is the birth rate going to surge again, is it going to take off again?

Dr. CHARLES WESTOFF: I think my view corresponds pretty much with that of Dr. Whelan. I think there will be a slight and, I suspect, temporary increase in births as postponement gets made up. I think that that postponement will. not all get made up. I think the proposition that later means fewer is still a valid proposition. And I don`t see any radical increase in fertility over the long haul.

LEHRER: So in other words, do you think it`s going to remain at a very low rate, or do you think it`s going to go down even further?

WESTOFF: `I. think it could go down further; I think that it will probably go up somewhat in the near future. I think that it will probably -- as people have more and more control over the number of children that they have -- I think it probably means that there`s going to be a lot more variation from year to year, perhaps reflecting short-run changes in the business cycle or fashions, or whatever.

LEHRER: All right. Well, let`s talk about reasons for a moment. What is your analysis of what caused the drop in the birth rate in the first place?

WESTOFF: Well, that`s a big question, because it`s been dropping for about 200 years in this country. I think that what`s unusual is probably the baby boom, and in a sense the question is, what caused the baby boom, because the decline in the birth rate has been happening in this country for about 200 years and in most of industrialized civilization for at least 100 years. And this is a response to all kinds of things that go under the heading of modernization, the education of women, the increase in per capita income, the decline in the importance of tradition and religion, and a whole bunch of things of this kind. I don`t think it`s only because of the emergence of the pill or any other technological dimension, but...

LEHRER: What about the women`s movement? That`s often cited as a reason.

WESTOFF: Well, but the birth rate`s gone down in lots of countries where the women`s movement hasn`t been particularly active, so I think that that`s probably responsible for some exaggeration of it; perhaps responsible for the decline in marriage, which is sort of a revolution, I think, that`s taking place now in a very silent way.

LEHRER: All right, then how do you see the reason for this slight upsurge that we`ve just seen, these last few months?

WESTOFF:I think it`s -- as Dr. Whelan said -- it`s a matter of women in their late twenties and early thirties who have postponed marriage and/or having a child who are...it`s sort of now or never for them, and I think there`s some of that postponement has to be made up. If that postponement is not made up, the implications of current trends are that something like thirty percent of all women would remain childless, which is an unprecedented rate in this country.

LEHRER: And you agree -- do you think that that is a valid projection?

WESTOFF: The thirty percent?

LEHRER: Yeah

WESTOFF: No, I think that that`s on the high side, but I wouldn`t be surprised if it was around twenty-five percent, which would still be higher than it`s ever been.

LEHRER: If I may summarize, then, your view of it, there`s nothing unusual about what`s been happening; this is something that you say started hundreds of years ago and that nothing special has happened -- if there was anything unusual, it was the baby boom after World War II, is that right?

WESTOFF: Yeah. Exactly. I think that the population problem of the future, which we see to some extent now in the present in some European countries, is how are you going to provide incentives for women to have children?

LEHRER: All right. Doctor, thank you. Economists are another group concerned about population trends, and Dr. Richard Easterlin of the University of Pennsylvania is c1e with a special interest; he`s a member of the Population Study Center. Doctor, do you agree with Dr. Westoff that the birth rate is going to continue to decline or re main at a low level?.

Dr. RICHARD EASTERLIN: No, I think Charlie and I have rather different views. My view is that there`s a fairly decent prospect of a fairly sustained upturn in the birth rate, probably starting in the course of the next five years, and continuing, say, over the next fifteen to twenty years.

LEHRER: All right. Why?

EASTERLIN: Well, the argument is based on a theory that in its simplest terms relates the birth rate to the relative numbers of young people -- let`s say young adults in their twenties -- when households get formed and childbearing is typically started. And the argument is that when there`s a relative...

LEHRER: Excuse me; you say that this is your theory and argument, right?

EASTERLIN: That`s right.

LEHRER: All right, just so I understand it.

EASTERLIN: Although others have advanced similar ideas.

LEHRER: All right. I just wanted to make sure I understood this was your position. Go ahead.

EASTERLIN: The argument is that when there`s a relatively small number of young adults, then they feel quite secure and they look forward to careers which are fairly promising; and because of this feeling and because they tend to be relatively affluent as a result of that, they tend to start families sooner and to have more children, which means typically they would start their childbearing in the twenties and continue on into the thirties. Whereas if there`s a relatively large number of young adults, their relative income situation is adversely affected, they tend to defer their childbearing and tend to start later and have a smaller number of children in their completed family.

LEHRER: And in short, you think the first alternative you just outlined is what we`re about to see in the next five to ten years - a smaller group of young people, a good feeling of well-being, and they`re going to have a lot of kids.

EASTERLIN: Yeah -- actually, the argument is based upon an interpretation of our past experience; in fact, of the baby boom that Dr. Westoff referred to. If we look back to the circumstances of the baby boom, we find that that was a situation in which there was a relatively small number of young people, and my argument is this ensuing set of circumstances led to high fertility. That high fertility in turn has produced relatively large numbers of young people at the present time and correspondingly low fertility. The low fertility that is currently occurring is going to produce. a relatively low number of young adults in the future and, by implication, high fertility.

May I just add one point? This assumes that we`re in the kind of situation that has emerged in the American economy since the 1930`s: first that you have a high level of aggregate demon. d, maintained through government monetary and fiscal policy; and secondly, that you have restricted immigration.

LEHRER: You think, then, that it`s basically an economic question more than anything else.

EASTERLIN: Yes; I`m not saying that other circumstances don`t affect people`s fertility, but the kinds of influences I`m talking about are ones that are very general throughout the economy - they tend to affect people similarly so that at a given time this factor is operating either to depress or raise fertility as compared to some later time. At any given time there are a variety of reasons that enter into people`s decisions: religion, psychological concerns, things of that sort; but they don`t change very systematically over time. It the economic circumstances that change systematically.

LEHRER: All right, Doctor, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: These days about forty-three percent of women in their early twenties are single, almost twice as many as in 1960. And of the women in their early twenties who are married, forty-two percent have no children -- again, twice as many as sixteen years ago. A social psychologist who has just completed a study of fertility trends is Dr. Marcia Guttentag. She`s the President of. the Division of Personality and Social Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and she`s with us at Public Television Station WGBH in Boston. Dr. Guttentag, do you agree with Dr. Easterlin`s prediction that the birth rate will go up again significantly within the next ten years or so?

Dr. MARCIA GUTTENTAG: Yes, I do. But I think that there are a few other reasons which are related to the cohort size that he mentioned, and these reasons relate to the relative numbers of men and women who are available to marry each other and to create families together.

MacNEIL: What does that mean in words of one syllable?

GUTTENTAG:(Laughing.)Well, it means that in the decade from 1960 to 1970 and into the early seventies we had a great many young women in this country who could not find men to marry. Now, what this means is not that they didn`t marry once, but. what we have is essentially a sequential marriage pattern on the part of men but much less so on the part of women when there are not enough men around. What this then means is that we develop a kind of concern about family stability, and it`s a true one because it`s reflected in the fact that we have very unstable families; there`s a high divorce rate, high rate of separation, high rate of single- parent families. So women become very loath to have children. They, for example, will think in terms of entering the job market because they`re much less sure that they`re going to be able to maintain a stable, two- parent home for the children that they have.

MacNEIL: Does that mean that women are afraid to have children because they`re afraid if they got married their marriage wouldn`t last and there wouldn`t be a man around throughout the upbringing of the children?

GUTTENTAG: Well, a great many things happen at once. When we have the situation that I`m describing in the culture, the entire culture has new emphases for women; many more women enter the labor market, get jobs; feminism tends to be strong, women do get further education; the typical routes for social mobility, which in the past in this country were economic mobility through marriage for women, are no longer the typical routes that women do use and can use; and so a great many things change. The entire culture then de-emphasizes having children, and women in traditional roles, and emphasizes women who are economically and socially independent.

MacNEIL: But you see this changing now, Dr. Guttentag. I assume that means that you see a better ratio of marriageable men to women emerging, is that right?

GUTTENTAG:I don`t think it`s better, but a different ratio.

MacNEIL: More propitious.

GUTTENTAG:(Laughing.) Well, depends on which side you`re on. We have, in the decade from `60 to `70, had the lowest sex ratio ever in this country; that is, the greatest number of women of marriageable age compared with men of marriageable age. I`d better say another word in here about why, and that`s because we have age differences in our marriage patterns. That is, women must. find men who are approximately two and a half years older than they are. So that when we have sharp rises in the birth rate, such as what we had in the late 1940`s and the 1950`s, we end up with larger and larger younger pools, and that`s why we have low sex ratios of a social kind; that is, who can marry whom. Now, as the birth rate declines, as it did, we end up with smaller and smaller. cohorts of people born, and there are enough, for instance, older men for the younger women. Now, that means that we move into a situation of relatively high sex ratios. We are moving into higher and higher sex ratios because people increasingly can control the sex of their child, and people in this country tend to prefer males to females, certainly as first-borns, and when they have small families; so that we are going to be producing more males. And what happens under those circumstances is that we go back to stable nuclear family patterns; and under those circumstances people are willing; to have more children.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, now we have, in a sense, three against one. You predict a slight increase in the birth rate in the years immediately coming; the rest of you seem to think it would be rather more significant than that. Do you care to comment at all on what you`ve heard?

WESTOFF: I think that this demographic marriage squeeze, which she`s just referring to, accounts for some part of this, but it certainly doesn`t account for. the fact that-- estimates vary by the very nature of the phenomenon --but there are several million people just living together without getting married; that has nothing to do with the sex ratio. I think that the fact that marriage seems to have gone out of style is a much more Fundamental thing -- a much more sociological thing -- than it. is a matter of the demographic pool available, which, as I say, I think. has played a minor role in this.

MacNEIL: Let`s pursue this, then -- whatever the nuances of your differences about how much the birth rate is going to increase -- about what is going to happen to the American family as a result of these trends. What do you believe, Dr. Whelan?

WHELAN: First of all, I`d just like to say that -- a very pessimistic thing to say, but -- demographers are infamously wrong in their predictions about what`s going to happen with the birth rate, and I think part of the problem is that we tend to approach it as a fully rational problem or decision- making process; and it is not. It is an emotional decision, and there are a lot of psychological factors going into this decision that go beyond the economy or whatever.

In terms of the impact on the family, I really can`t say, except for the fact that I think there`s going to be.a great deal more involvement of other than the parent raising the child. Those who have waited a long time to have their first baby are not going to be full-time parents; they are going to get help, whether it`s on a one-to-one basis or seeking more day care or other kind of arrangements.

MacNEIL: I see. Do you want to comment on that?

EASTERLIN: I think that if you argue along the lines that I`ve been arguing, that really it would imply there would be a return more to a family-oriented type of home of the kind we experienced in the 1950`s, and I would tend to argue further that it`s possible that some part of the trends toward marital dissolution also grow out of the kind of process that I`ve been talking about. A study by Samuel Preston, who`s a demographer, has linked the movement in divorce rates -- a swing in divorce rates -- to the kind of relative affluence of young adults that I`ve been talking about. If that were true, then that, too is consistent. with the notion -- if it`s correct -- it`s consistent with the notion that we would move back toward a more family-oriented society.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you all this: if the birth rate continued to decline, that could presumably have a great many repercussions on the society economically and socially; and perhaps we needn`t go into all of them, but for instance, today the Vice President, in the absence of Mr. Carter, announced that the government would like to raise social security taxes because the proportion of people in the population who are receiving social security is growing larger than the proportion who are contributing to it, and if the birth rate continued to decline, presumably that trend would increase -- effects like that, which would change the economic structure of the country to a large extent. if it continued to decline, do any of you believe the government should try to do something, as you suggested, Dr. Westoff, to provide incentives to have children -- to actually have a birth policy? Would you elaborate a bit on your suggestion?

WESTOFF: I think that governments inevitably will do this, I don`t think particularly for the reason that social security burdens are going to become more onerous, but for lots of other reasons having to do with a concept of national vitality or national virility, if you will, and that...

MacNEIL: I just mentioned that one because it happened today.

WE STOFF: No the social security thing, I think, is going to be a serious problem as the population ages. I think the ratio of workers to retired people at zero population growth would be something like two to one, and that`s quite...

MacNEIL: It`s 3.2 to one at the moment, I believe.

WESTOFF: Yes; so it will go down to two to one, and you can just appreciate the relative increase in that burden. But I think that the government will get into the business of trying to provide, as it has in European countries, baby bonuses, maternity benefits, all kinds of things that will try to stimulate the birth rate. I think that`s down the road quite along while.

MacNEIL: Dr. Guttentag, do you think that that`s a feasible thing for the government to do?

GUTTENTAG: It may be feasible, but I don`t think it will be necessary because we are going to have increased family stability, and with that a rise in .fertility; so that although I don`t think we`re going to go back to the baby boom time, I think we will go back to larger population growth without the government doing anything.

MacNEIL: Presumably you feel, Dr. Easterlin, that at the moment, if your projection came true, the government wouldn`t need to; but if the birth rate did continue to decline, would you be in favor of the government trying to stimulate an increase iii the birth rate?

EASTERLIN: Well, that`s a matter of personal opinion. My own inclination is to say that family size decisions are a very personal matter, and I am not particularly prone to argue for pro-naturalist policies or particularly any naturalist policy.

WHELAN: If you could make a distinction between having a stimulating effect on the economy versus removing some of the disincentives that now exist -- for instance, right now there is a very modest child care credit that you can get on your income tax should you incur a lot of costs. I believe it`s $400 per child. I think that in the next few years that might be raised, because if there is any tremendous economic burden on a couple electing, it is that particular fact: can we afford help?

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there at the moment. Thank you very much, Dr. Guttentag in Boston; and thank you, Jim. And thank you all here. We`ll be back tomorrow night, when we`ll be looking into the morale of the FBI as it comes under increasing attack. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.