Nicholas Eberstadt
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THE AMERICAN ADVANTAGE
Relative to its principal rivals, the United States is in an enviable po-
sition. This should come as no surprise: the United States has been
the most powerful country in the world since World War II, and its
demographic advantages—its large and highly educated population,
relatively high fertility rates, and welcoming immigration policies—
have been crucial to that success.
The United States’ most obvious demographic advantage is its size.
It is the world’s third most populous country, and it is likely to remain
so until 2040. No other developed country even comes close—the sec-
ond and third largest, Japan and Germany, have populations that are
two-Ãfths and one-fourth the size o the U.S. population, respectively.
Between 1990 and 2015, the United States generated nearly all the
population growth for the ¤’s “more developed regions,” and both ¤
and U.S. Census Bureau projections suggest that it will generate all o
these regions’ population growth between 2015 and 2040. In fact, ex-
cluding sub-Saharan Africa—the only region where the rate o popula-
tion growth is still increasing—the U.S. population is on track to grow
slightly faster than the world population between now and 2040.
The United States beneÃts from what might be called “American
demographic exceptionalism.” Compared with other developed
countries, the United States has long enjoyed distinctly high immi-
gration levels and birthrates. Between 1950 and 2015, close to 50 mil-
lion people immigrated to the United States, accounting for nearly
hal o the developed world’s net immigration over that time period.
These immigrants and their descendants made up most o the United
States’ population growth over those decades. But U.S. fertility is
also unusually high for an aØuent society. Apart from a temporary
dip during and immediately after the Vietnam War, the United States’
birthrates after World War II have consistently exceeded the developed-
country average. Between the mid-1980s and the Ãnancial crisis o
2008, the United States was the only rich country with replacement-
level fertility. Assuming continued levels o immigration and near-
replacement fertility, most demographers project that by 2040, the
United States will have a population o around 380 million. It will
have a younger population than almost any other rich democracy,
and its working-age population will still be expanding. And unlike
the rest o the developed world in 2040, it will still have more births
than deaths.