Barbieri Magali, Ouellette Nadine
Institut national d'études démographiques (INED), Paris.
Population (Engl Ed). 2012 Jun 1;67(2):177-280. doi: 10.3917/pope.1202.0177.
Canada and the United States have enjoyed vigorous population growth since the early 1980s. Although mortality is slightly higher in the United States than in Canada, this is largely offset by much higher fertility, with a total fertility rate at replacement level, compared with just 1.5 children per woman in Canada. The United States is also the world's largest immigrant receiving country, although its immigration rate is only half that of Canada, where today one person in five is foreign-born, versus one in eight in the United States. Based on recent trends in fertility, mortality and international migration, the populations of these two North American countries will continue to grow over the next five decades, but at a progressively slower pace. The most acute demographic issue today is not, as in Europe, that of imminent population decline, but rather of the geographic and social inequalities which have increased steadily since the early 1980s and which are reflected in major fertility and health differentials between regions and social groups.
自20世纪80年代初以来，加拿大和美国人口一直保持强劲增长。尽管美国的死亡率略高于加拿大，但这在很大程度上被高得多的生育率所抵消，美国的总生育率维持在更替水平，而加拿大每名妇女仅生育1.5个孩子。美国也是世界上最大的移民接收国，尽管其移民率仅为加拿大的一半，在加拿大，如今五分之一的人口是外国出生的，而在美国这一比例为八分之一。根据近期生育率、死亡率和国际移民的趋势，这两个北美国家的人口在未来五十年将继续增长，但增速会逐渐放缓。如今，这两个国家最严峻的人口问题并非像欧洲那样面临迫在眉睫的人口减少问题，而是自20世纪80年代初以来持续加剧的地理和社会不平等问题，这体现在不同地区和社会群体之间巨大的生育率和健康差异上。
