Baby Shortage

The nation’s wartime birth rate is declining (from a peak of 3.2 million in 1943). The Census Bureau expects the birth rate to level off, for the remaining war years, at about 2.1 million annually. Peace will probably bring a temporary birth boom as war marriages begin producing and postponed marriages get under way; then the birth rate is expected to slump again. The U.S. is faced with the prospect of a declining population within 50 years.*

*For other news about the birth rate, see Medicine