U.S. future population uncertain, due to migration
Cohen said that the rate of continuned immigration to the U.S. is a controversial choice that we have to make as a society. He said, "The important lesson is that population growth is not an engine that's determined by some unseen destiny. It's a choice that we make about the future."(Shanghai Sky)
JB: Demographers agree that U.S. population is growing and will continue to grow. But if you look at the projections of the U.S. Census Bureau in contrast to those of the United Nations Population Division, you’ll see radically different U.S. population estimates for the year 2050.
Joel Cohen: Now why is there uncertainty? Right now, the yearly population growth of the United States is on the order of three million people. One-third of that, or one million people, is due to migration.
DB: That’s Joel Cohen, who heads the Laboratory of Populations of Rockefeller and Columbia Universities in New York City. Cohen told Earth & Sky that people who immigrate to the U.S. often have children there. Some of the uncertainty in predicting future U.S. population stems from a simple question: will these newcomers have children at a rate similar to people in their country of origin, or possibly fewer children, reflecting the average birth rate in the U.S.?
JB: But Cohen said the biggest uncertainty about future U.S. population is the rate of immigration itself. That rate is a matter of U.S. policy decisions. By the way, an organization funded by NASA called SEDAC has put together a cool population immigration map. For that link, come to earthsky.org.
DB: Our thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
More from Joel Cohen on immigration:
“All humans are immigrants to the New World, even the Native Americans are immigrants. They came across the Bering Strait. We’re all immigrants, or descendants of immigrants.
“I think that we could do a much better job of receiving, accommodating, educating, and taking care of the immigrants that we receive. I am not sure that we are doing all that
we could to help them with mastery of English and good education. So people respond punitively. And that does not make much sense if they’re in the country, because immigrants are doing a lot of the work.
“For a variety of reasons – human rights reasons as well as self-interest reasons – I think that we should be making a bigger investment in educating and helping along the immigrants in our midst so that they can become productive, engaged, and committed members of the society and help make it better in the next generation.”
Read Earth & Sky’s interview with Joel Cohen.
Our thanks to:
Joel E. Cohen
Laboratory of Populations
Rockefeller University & Columbia University
New York, NY
Additional Teacher Resources
U.S. Census Bureau: National Population Projections
This article provided by the U.S. Census Bureau includes statistics and information regarding U.S. population growth and trends.
SEDAC: Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center
SEDACs mission is to develop and operate applications that support the integration of socioeconomic and earth science data and to serve as an “information gateway” between the earth sciences and social sciences. Visit their website for a variety of resources, maps, and data.
