单选题
If past is prologue, then it ought to be possible to draw some modest conclusions about the future from the wealth of data about America"s present. Wilt the rate continue to fall? Will single-person households actually submerge the traditional family?
All projections, of course, must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nonetheless, the urge to make sense of what lies ahead is inescapable. After the 1980 census, the Census Bureau decided for the first time to venture some forecasts of its own for the decades to come. Working from what America already knows about itself, the bureau"s experts and other demographers offer an irresistible, if clouded, crystal ball among their visions.
According to the census projections, female life expectancy will increase from 78.3 years in 1981 to 81.3 in the year 2005. The life expectancy of American men will grow from 70.7 for babies born in 1981 to 73.3 years in 2005. And by the year 2050, women will have a life expectancy of 83.6 years and men of at least 75.1. Annual population growth will slow to almost nothing by 2050. In fact, the Census Bureau predicts that the rate of natural increase will be negative after 2035; only continuing immigration will keep it growing after that. The total population will be 268 million in 2000 and 309 million—an all-time high—in 2050. After that, it will start to decline.
The American population will grow steadily older. From 11.4 percent in 1981, the proportion of the population that is 65 and over will grow to 13.1 percent in 2000 and 21.7 percent in 2050. The percentage of the population that lives beyond the age of 85 will more than quintuple over the same period. Meanwhile the median age—30.3 in 1981—will rise to 36.3 by 2000 and 41.6 50 years later.
When it comes to the quality of life, more predictors are fairly cautious. John Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin observes that "as we enter the 1980s, the pace of change appears to have slowed." For the next few decades, he predicts, there may be only modest swings in the marriage, birth and divorce rates—giving society time to adjust to the new patterns that have formed in recent years. "We are in a plateau in our family patterns that will likely last for a while," Cherlin maintains. Crime expert Alfred Blumstein, who foresees a drop in crime over the coming decade, predicts that the Northeast and Midwest, with stable but aging populations, will see the falloff first; for the South and Southwest, with their large proportions of younger people, the improvement will come less quickly.
单选题
The author regards predictions about the future as ______