The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (88 page)

378

M. Harrington Meyer and P. Herd

Figure 26.1 Illustrative population pyramids, 1998.

Source: US Bureau of the Census, International Database.

Figure 26.2 Dependency ratio changes in the USA, 1900±2050.

Source: US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1975, 1993.

The increasing proportion of the elderly in the US population, however, is also

due to the post-Second World War babyboom (Levy and Michel, 1991). Between

1946 and 1958, fertility rates exploded to an average of 3.17 children per

woman and then dropped dramatically to an all-time low of 1.7 (Quadagno,

1999). The great numbers of babyboomers, compared to the relatively small

numbers in the generations immediately following them, have raised several

concerns. Babyboomers have had enormous impacts on various institutions as

they bulge through the population pyramid, overflowing schools in their child-

hood and tightening the labor market in their middle years. In their latter years they will strain the economic stability of government social programs for the

elderly. Figure 26.2 shows how these demographic shifts affect the dependency

ratio, or the proportion of the population that is dependent on the working