The Transition from High to Low Fertility: Challenge to Demographers

One of the perils and glories of demographic work is that our projections can be checked against the facts. I'm not sure that the quick surveys I have made should be dignified by the terms "prediction" or "projection." I certainly expect that I will be proved wrong in many particulars. This would be true of even the most careful and painstaking projections at present. Nevertheless I issue a call for making such projections much more carefully, so that we can learn from careful diagnosis of both errors and successes about the basic forces at work. Whether I am right or wrong about particular pieces, it seems safe to say that fertility changes will be occurring at various rates and under varying conditions in different countries in the next five to twenty-five years. Probably, we can learn most about the social and demographic processes in fertility change if we observe them unde such varying conditions, before, during, and after the major changes.