After the demographic surge in the 1950s, there was a period of slowdown in population growth, which lasted three decades in a row, i.e. if after the 1920s there was a relative decrease in the growth rate of the US population, then since the 1960s there has been a tendency for a decrease and its absolute growth, when it numerically, although it increased, but at a much slower pace than in the previous half century, which is due to the first a turn with a renewed decline in the birth rate, which by the mid-1960s had decreased to 19.4 ‰, in the mid-1970s it was 14.5 ‰, in 1980 it slightly increased and by the middle of the decade reached 15.8 ‰, and by 2000 fell to 14.4 ‰ 8. Recession 2008-2009 with its dim economic outlook, contributed to this process by accelerating the downward trend; As a result, the birth rate by the end of 2010 fell to the lowest level in more than a hundred years – 12.9 ‰ 9.
And if in the middle of the last century the ratio of fertility and mortality still ensured a relatively high natural increase10 * of the population – 1.5%, today this figure is less than 0.5% 11. Thus, the times when Americans as a young nation ranked one of the first places in the world in terms of natural population growth due to high birth rates are over.
The basis of natural population growth, in addition to the birth rate, is determined by a number of social and demographic factors, among which one of the main ones is a decrease in mortality due to an increase in the quality of life, primarily due to advances in the field of medicine and improvement of the health care system.