Figure 2.Age-specific fertility rate of women in several human populations expressed as births per 1000 women. The Hutterites are a religious isolate of North America who prize high fertility and are in generally good health. The “Chinese farmers” represent a group of rural villagers, and the “!Kung” are a society of hunters and gatherers living in the Kalahari desert of Botswana in southern Africa. Lower fertility among the rural Chinese and the !Kung, compared with the Hutterites, may also be due to nutritional stress and disease. The United States is a wealthy industrialized nation in which cultural desire for smaller families combined with effective birth control technology reduces fertility at most ages. The U. S. population is slightly above replacement level, that is, growing very slowly due to in-migration. Portugal is a more extreme case of controlled fertility. The effect of out-migration of young women combined with strong desire for small families lowers fertility and results in a shrinking population over time. (Adapted from B. Bogin, The Growth of Humanity, 2001)
