Population Pressures
ANVIL, TUESDAY, 12th July 2016
Please note that this session is on TUESDAY 12th not Wednesday 13th as Derek’s paper is headed
This subject is a really interesting one and again one that is often so daunting that we prefer not to think about it in a systematic way. Derek has done some careful research. What follows is his full papaer:
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POPULATION PRESSURES
by Derek Hudson
This paper is somewhat unusually structured. It consists firstly of a large number of statistical facts. After going through all of those, the reader is asked to find his or her own conclusions. I will start the ball rolling, by giving my own conclusions. But I am by no means saying that reasonable men and women should not come to different conclusions from mine.
Two quotations, to give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem:
“ Four people are born every second of every day. Conservative estimates suggest that there will be 10 billion people on earth by 2025. That is billions more than the natural resources of our plant can sustain without big changes in how we use and manage them.” [A.D. Barnosky & E.A. Hadley]
“Chinese women, who were bearing an average of six children as recently as 1965, are now having around 1.5” [Hania Zlomak, Director of the UN Population Division]
Questions that arise
(a) Is there a possibility that the world’s population will peak sometime this century?
(b) What will happen to the 500,000 young Chinese men who fail to find wives?
(c) How strong is the world’s fertility rate dependent on the level of women’s education? How much of reduced fertility is dependent on the availability of contraception?
(d) Is there any correlation between population growth and the local level of democracy?
- Introduction
“Population Pressures” is a multi-faceted subject. Closely related subjects include security in old age, climate change, food scarcity and water shortages. As such, anyone’s choice of material is bound to be somewhat subjective. My own choice focuses on the resources that will be needed to sustain us.
I have tried to group the facts below into categories. The first is pure fact about the rate at which the world’s population is growing. The second is the economic and climatic implications derived from this particular rate of growth.
- Rates of growth
The earth’s human population has been growing steadily since prehistoric times, but the last 200 years have seen human numbers grow exponentially. For example, the world’s population grew from 150 million in the year 1 to 300 million in the year 1000, and to 1.000 million in 1830. The population then leaped to 5,000 million in 1910 and then sprinted on to 6,350 million in 2004. The worry is that the world might run out of food, water and other resources if the world’s population were to continue to grow at such a high rate, particularly in developing countries.
Below, I have selected thirty one discussion points that underlay discussions about the earth’s population pressures. These are grouped together under 6 headings:
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AAA Population statistics
BBB The connection between climate change and population change
CCC Family planning
DDD Our ageing population
EEE Limitations to the rise in living standards
FFF The impact of migration
GGG Consumer pressures
AAA. POPULATION STATISTICS
(a) Until recently, the world’s population grew “exponentially”, that is by a constant annual proportion. This would obviously be unsustainable, if it were to continue.
(b) Fortunately, there are strong reasons to believe that this pattern is changing rapidly, at least in the richer parts of the world. However, the world’s population is still rising by 70 million per year. In fact, it seems to be a general rule that the poorer the people are, the faster the rate at which their population grows. Several least developed countries are heading for a five-fold increase in population, including Burundi, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.
An extreme example of rapid population growth is that of the combined population of (the recently separated) Sudan and South Sudan. Their combined population grew from 8.3 million in 1950 to 58.5 million in 2010.That seven-fold increase in numbers was accompanied by a 21 year long civil war. In February 2014, a third of the population were desperately in need of food aid, nearly a million people had been displaced, tens of thousands had been killed, and government forces and rebels were razing towns for what seemed like no good reason.
(c) Population growth is widely regarded as a contributing to a number of other important factors. 70 percent of deforestation worldwide is directly caused by population growth. This in turn contributes to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn contributes to global warming. Rapid and persistent population growth can force farmers and fishermen to over-exploit fragile ecosystems, with damaging results.
(d) Britain’ animosity towards immigration should be addressed, not exploited. [This attitude may be compared with the attitude of Canadians, who warmly welcome immigrants from every corner of the globe, albeit with checks on their ability to sustain themselves in Canada.]
(e) Any attempt at officially enforced birth control may lead to even bigger problems than it solves. For example, China’s “one baby” policy has led to the current situation where there are 500,000 more marriageable young men in China than there are marriageable young women. Another unexpected consequence is that the outlook for future growth in China will be reduced by the much smaller than expected limitations to the rise in living standards of the population.
(f) Nowadays, women are living longer than men. Surprisingly, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, starting at the beginning of the 19th century..This explains why earlier statisticians always assumed that men and women would live for the same number of years after their retirement, and designed pension schemes accordingly.
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This incorrect assumption (of equal longevity), led in turn to the unfortunate result that “defined benefit” pension plans are no longer economically viable.
The reason for the recent changes in women’s longevity, is that they are no longer giving birth to so many children., thus reducing significantly the risk of dying in child birth.The resulting change to smaller families has of course unleashed a flood of capable female talent which was previously obscured by the time and effort devoted to bring up a large family. This has prompted a reapid increase in many counties’ Gross Domestic Product, as more and more women enter the world of work.
(h) The “neutral” replacement rate (ie the fertility rate that keeps a population constant) is 2.1 in industrialised countries, and 2.3 on a world-wide average. [This number is more than 2 because not all women will reproduce.] Any country with a lower fertility rate will see its natural population (excluding immigrants) decline, eg Russia and Germany.
The 8 countries with the highest fertility rates are Nigeria, (leading to the world’s 3rd largest population by 2050), India, Tanzania, DR Congo, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia and the United States of America.
Between now and 2050, if all of the above-listed countries brought their fertility rates down to replacement level, we would end up with a global population which would stabilise at a little over 10 billion.
Half a child below replacement would allow us to stabilise at around 7 billion. Just half a child above replacement rate would produce a global population of around 16 billion. So whichever way you look at it, we’re adding close to 3 billion people to the planet over the next 34 years
(i) In the decade 2000 to 2010, China’s population grew by 6%, reaching a little over 1.3 billion people. In the same decade, Beijing’s population increased by 30%, from about 14 million to 20 million. [The difference in rates of growth, comparing 6% with 30%, was due to rural to urban migration within China].
The “one baby” policy also had another unintended consequence. After the Chinese government had made intra womb scanning illegal, and had ordered the scanners to be locked away, the persons with the keys received an inundation of bribes to open the doors so that the scans would allow prospective parents to abort their baby if it was seen to be a girl.
Beijing is experiencing major problems:- a water supply that can only support 60% of the city’s residents, inadequate housing and public transportation, lack of access to medical care and education, and air pollution so bad that anyone venturing outdoors is recommended to wear a face mask.
(j) By 2050, the world’s five least developed countries, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, will be among the 20 most populated countries in the world. And, by 2100, three more less developed countries will climb into the top twenty list, namely Niger, Sudan and Mocambique. Africa will soon be the only continent where the population is still continuing to grow.
(k) The majority of the earth’s population is young. For example, in the 1971 population census in Botswana, the median age was 15. [Half the population was younger than 15 years old, half were older].
- ll) Half the world already has a fertility rate which is below the long-term replacement level. Examples are Russia and Germany. Conversely, the USA still has a population which continues to increase rapidly, even not counting the effects of immigration.
(m) In a 2011 survey of British adults, four out of five people thought that the UK’s population was too high, with almost half saying it was already much too high. Two thirds said that the UK would be a better place to live in if it had fewer people. Over half agreed with reducing net migration.
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(n) Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. 40 years ago, the average woman had between five and six children. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the
replacement level, which is 2.3. This rapid change in the “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) is usually called “The Demographic Transition”
(o) It took 28 years for the world’s population to increase from 1 to 2 billion. It is estimated that it will take only 14 years to increase from 7 to 8 billion.
BBB THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND POPULATION MOVEMENTS
(p) Governments in Asia and the Pacific need to prepare for a large increase in climate-induced migration in the coming years. One Pacific island has already been abandoned, while others are making plans to evacuate their low lying islands. Yet no international co-operation mechanism has been set up to manage these potential migration flows.
(q) An excellent counter-example is provided by the Indian ocean country of Mauritius. They first eliminated malaria, then they raised living standards, then they emphasised education for young women, then they improved health care and brought down death rates, then they improved access to contraceptives and they made education free. The result was a 60% decline in the fertility rate (with no coercion) by 1980, and a 70% decline by 2010.
The government also introduced helpful economic measures (such as a tax free export zone) which massively increased Mauritius’ international competitiveness. The government also used a psychological “weapon”. They persuaded their multi ethnic population (four major major racial and religious groups) to tolerate diversity of cultural and racial traditions, and also the need to be open to innovation. Mauritius’ carrot and stick approach began lowering the fertility rate very fast. By the year 2000, over a 40 year period, China’s TFR rate had fallen from 6 to 2.5.
CCC FAMILY PLANNING
(e) As everyone knows, population planning has been restricted among those people with strong religious objections. Fortunately, better educated young women are starting to ignore such conservative religious advice.
DDD OUR AGEING POPULATION
(j) The world’s population is ageing dramatically. Demographers expect the average age of populations to continue to rise throughout this century. This is resulting in the ratio of retired people to working people (the “dependency ratio”) increasing rapidly. This in turn means that young people will be forced to have to look after their parents much more than was the case when parents could depend exclusively on their pensions.
(p) The benefits of conception use are dramatic and far-reaching. They include preventing unintended pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions, and reducing the number of deaths and illnesses related to complications of childbirth. Contraceptive use enables a couple to have the number of children they want and can care for, can reduce the transmission of HIV, help reduce pressure on scarce natural resources, and can improve educational opportunities.
(q) Among married women, unmet need for contraception is highest among those aged 15 to 24.
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EEE LIMITATIONS TO THE RISE IN LIVING STANDARDS
- q) Progress in reducing hunger in the developing countries has slowed to a crawl. In some regions, the number of under-nourished people has actually been growing in recent years. There are still 906 million
hungry people in developing countries. The number of people currently living on less than one dollar per day is about 980 million.
(r) More than any other resource, water shortage is becoming a critical issue both for agriculture (70% of water use), and 30% for industry and households.
FFF THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION
(r) We live in an age of migration, with a record 200 million people now living outside their country of birth [Hazel, Philip and I are three of them], with approximately 20 additional million people wanting to change their country, and with an additional 214 million persons who have been displaced within their OWN country, such as the Syrians. One out of every 33 persons in the world today is a migrant, whereas in 2000 only one out of 35 persons was a migrant.
The increase in migration has many different causes. The main one is the differences in standards of living. For example, the UK has ten times the GDP per head as Bulgaria. Similarly, many Africans try to get tom Europe, in the hopes of raising both their own standard of living, and in the hope that they will be able to to send remittances back to their home country, as for example, Mexico.
Migration as such is not new, but widening inequality between high- and low-income countries acts as a strong driver for migration.
(x) People of course tend to migrate to the most desirable areas, including to richer areas within one’s own country. which, in the absence of equally fast growth of infrastructure, causes some major social problems. For example, in the state of Bangalore in India, the influx of people has outpaced both the infrastructure and the availability of natural resources, making it routine for electricity and water to be available for only parts of the day (but only in those parts of the city that even have any access at all).
GGG POPULATION PRESSURES
(y) The link between rapid growth, local wars and escalating global conflict is one of the most important population growth impacts. With rapid population growth usually come important changes in the “population pyramid”. This refers to the growing number of people in infant, child-age, teenage, young adult, older adult and geriatric age groups. Rapid population growth bulges the teenage and young adult categories, which means that there are just too many curious, energetic young people with no productive way to channel their energy.
This “inverted pyramid” also means that more and more retired people are being supported by fewer and fewer young people in work, who have to support their elderly grandparents. In addition, the workforce of people in the working age category tends to experience much higher proportions of unemployment. As mentioned above, this phenomenon is adding to the wolrd-wide pressure on pension funds.
(z) The world is fast running out of water. The Colorado River basin in the USA provides an example. From 2004 to 2013, the surface water depletion – evidenced by drying up reservoirs, was paltry compared to what was depleted underground. The total (surface plus aquifer) water depletion has so far come to 53 million acre-feet, which was about equal to submerging the entire United Kingdom under a foot of water.
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The Colorado River story is not an anomaly. In seven years beginning with 2003, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, in the Tigris and Euphrates drainage area, saw their water reserves decline by a volume equivalent to
the entire Dead Sea. On the boundary between Israel and Jordan, the River Jordan has slowed to a trickle, with the result that the Dead Sea is steadily shrinking.
Other major aquifers that are draining fast include the North China plain, Australia’s Canning Basin, north-western India, the Great Plains of the USA, and parts of Brazil and Argentina. Many of these aquifers
were filled up with pre- historic water that will take more than 1,000 years to refill. There is not enough water falling out of the sky to slake the global thirst.
It would be OK if we were only drinking water we needed, but what we need for drinking and personal use is only a metaphorical drop in the bucket, less than 10% of of all the water used. For example, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with more than 2 million people, more than 95% of small farmers’ wells have already dried up.
Satellite subterranean X rays reconnaissance shows that ground water aquifers have been depleted all over the world, over the last decade.
Growing enough food requires us to consume 70% of all the water we use, except that in the USA, it’s 85%. And, as the world’s standards of living improve, more electricity will be required. In times of plenty, there is no problem. But when water starts to get scarce, an irresolvable conflict between growing food and generating adequate electricity will arise. That can easily lead to water riots, as happened in Pakistan in 2012.
(aa) If we now throw climate change into the mix, more electricity is required during a hotter climate for keeping air conditioners going. Add to that that many more people will move into higher economic classes, more electricity will be demanded as well as more food is needed. The bottom line is that by 2040 the world will face insurmountable water shortages, if things keep on going as before. There is a big risk that this will give rise to international warfare. Recently, the USA bombed Iraq again, because ISIL had taken control of the huge Mosul dam in the centre of Iraq – the main source of water and electricity generation for all the downstream communities.
Other countries that have been involved in water skirmishes are Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, China, Columbia, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gaza, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, Somalia, South Africa, USA and Yemen.
“The implications for the world’s resources are stark and sobering: global demand for food and water is expected to increase by 50 percent and 30 percent, respectively, by 2030; the pressure on copper, lead, zinc and corn is already becoming unsustainable, and no one has a clue where the energy is going to come from”
The world will be drawn into a war for resources …. I think we will see more wars”. [Dambisa Moyo, Goldman Sachs, New York]
(ab) Right now, about 1.1 billion people (roughly one in seven of us) lack adequate access to water. Many of them will have to make do with only 5 litres per day, even though the World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 20 litres per day. Projections indicate that by 2025, the number of people short of water will be around 3 billion. In addition, one third of the earth’s population gets much of its water from rivers whose sources are glaciers. If climate change causes these glaciers to shrink, more than one quarter of the people on the planet could be devastated.
“Each person requires 50 to 100 times more water to produce the food they eat than they use in their home. There will, however, be just enough water if the proportion of animal based foods is limited to 5 percent of our our total calories, and if considerable regional water deficits can be met by a well organised and reliable
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system of international food trade.”[Stockholm International Water Institute, 2012] Itis well known that vegetarians require far less water to generate the food that they eat.
Life expectancy at birth
| Date
|
Remarks, including life expectancy at birth (LEB)
|
Comments | |
| Paleolithic * | LEB = 33 | * about 2.6 million years ago | |
| Neolithic ** | LEB = 33 | ** about 10.200 BC to 4,000 BC | |
| Mediaeval England | LEB = 30 | ||
| Early modern
England |
LEB = 35 | ||
| 1250 | LEB = 64 | ||
| 1350 | LEB – 45 | Bubonic plague, or “Black Death” | |
| Other statistics | |||
| Population(millions) | Remarks | Comments | |
| 1 | 150 | High rates of both infant and childhood mortality | People lived in small settlements |
| 1000 | 753 | “Black death” kills off one quarter of the world’s population | Gradual improvements of agriculture and medicine; move to larger communities |
| Middle ages | Primitive communities regulated their population sizes by spacing out their babies, every four years, partly because of the effect of lactation | The transition from foraging to farming increased the standard of living, hence more babies survived | |
| 1830 | 1,000 | Industrial revolution starts slowly in the 1800s, assisted by the move away from remote rural hamlets towards towns | Improved methods of agriculture, starting in the 1700s |
| 1900 | 1,600 | Industrial revolution in full swing | Further improvements to medicine |
| 1988 | 5,000 | Estimated to be half of the world’s peak population | |
| 2000 | 6,100 | Due to massive improvements in medicine | Pressure on water supplies |
| 2025?? | 8,000 | Negative growth among richer countries, and slower growth among some middle income countries, eg Botswana | A cure of any of the biggest killers, eg malaria and TB, would have an enormous impact on the developing world |
- Some examples
2.1 An example of the “Demographic Transition”
It happens that I have studied Botswana’s demographic transition in great detail. In the 1971 population census, the desired number of babies per woman was 8.0 (four boys and for girls), but the actual number of children per woman was 6.0, as shown by the 1971 Population Census.. Thatbexplains why family planning was so unsuccessful.
But, with rising living standards and with better access to education, especially for girls, by 2011 the desired number of children per woman in Botswana had fallen to 3.4, but the actual number of children per woman had only fallen to 4.3. This was after a nine-fold increase in the real (inflation-adjusted) Gross Domestic Product per head during the same period, plus a 95% participation rate of female primary education.
2.2 Former checks and balances
In the past, population growth was kept in check by the inability of countries to increase their agricultural production at the same rate as their populations were growing. This strong “brake” has now been significantly modified by two factors, namely the “green revolution” and development aid. The latter is for example supporting 8 million Ethiopians on more-or-less permanent food aid. In addition, the United Nations is looking after something like 6 million refugees in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey, especially the very large number of Palestinian refugees..
2.3 An example of the effect of improved medicine
In Sri Lanka in the 1950s, infant mortality (under one year old) was about 105 deaths for every 1,000 live births. By the 1990s, the rate had fallen to below 20 out of every 1,000 live births.
This was due to immunisations, oral re-hydration therapy and birth spacing. With health conditions improving so rapidly, birth rates in developing countries did not have time to change as rapidly as they did in Europe. This time lag (compared to Europe, for example) between the drop in death rates and birth rates produced unprecedented levels of population growth. This contributed to a rise in life expectancy at birth from about 42 years in the early 1950s to 56 years in the late 1970s, and to much greater figures nowadays.
In the early 1950s, Kenya’s annual population growth rate approached an unheard-of 4 percent. Another example is that Pakistan had a life expectancy of 41 years and a total fertility rate of 6.6, one of the highest ever recorded.
- The impact of Aids on Botswana
In 2000, after Aids was discovered in Botswana in 1985, LEB = 49.
In 2011, after the introduction of free anti retro viral medication, LEB = 66
3.2 My wife and I observed a mid career woman die of AIDS. She was followed by her own teenager daughter, her 52 year old mother, her 52 year old step-father, and her 9 month old niece, whose weight at death equalled her birth weight.
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3.3 The manager of a large mine saw that he would have to beef up the mine hospital, in order to help the increasing number of HIV+ mineworkers. He accordingly asked his chief medical officer to go on a retraining
course, on how best to administer anti retro viral medication. The two of them recognised that the mine hospital
would need more beds, and more nurses. The question was, by how much should the mine’s medical effort be expanded?
The mine manager then asked to have a meeting with the mine workers’ union. He explained that he would be willing to give every mine worker an HIV test, and that he would only use the information for statistical purposes, to help him with his forward planning at the mine hospital. However, the union leader said that such information was strictly private, and that the mineworkers would therefore not go along with this idea.
The following compromise was then agreed. The mine manager would go ahead with the testing of each mine worker, but only on the strict understanding that the individual mine workers would NOT be told of their individual status. The prevalence rate turned out to be 61%, and the mine manger could plan accordingly.
- Further comments
4.1 The main demographic characteristics of this century are expected to be:
(a) ageing of societies, which will spread to most countries, accompanied by a massive increase in dementia;
(b) slower global population growth, but with major regional differences;
(c) migration, especially that caused by wars, economic differences, and environmental factors (such as inhabited islands expecting to be submerged;) some time in the second half of this century;
(d) massive world-wide increases in both consumption and pollution;
(e) “Peak” population some time this century, though the exact date is not yet known;
(f) no one has been able to come up with a solution to Japan’s demographic problem.
4.2 World food production
(a) Since the 18th century, various amateur statisticians, led by an Anglican clergyman, Rev Thomas Malthus, (1766 to 1834) have attempted to “prove” that the world is running out of food. The problem was with their hypotheses. They assumed that the world’s population would continue to grown faster than the rate of increase of productivity of the world’s cereal production. When the latter part of this hypotheses turned out to be false, their gloomy prediction fell away.
- References
“Population Growth and Migration” edited by Lisa Firth. Published by Independence 44pp.(2012).
“10 billion :- the coming demographic crisis” , by Danny Dorling. Published by Constable. 438pp. (2013).
“End Game, tipping point for planet earth”, by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadley. Published by William Collins. 264 pp. (2015)
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“An Essay on the Principle of Population”, by rev Thomas Robert Malthus. Published by Oxford World Classics in 1978.
Appendix
The bias inherent in the way that GDP is measured
“Growth” is seen as a kind of holy grail, to be striven after at all costs. But how is this growth measured? If a biased method is used, shouldn’t we modify this implied goal so as to take account of the harmful consequences of our pursuit of growth?
The idea of using the Gross Domestic Product per person (GDP/head) is heavily biased. It doesn’t takes into account the depletion of the earth’s finite resources. For example, Botswana’s GDP Growth has been
phenomenal, but only at the expense of using up nearly all of Botswana’s stock of un-mined diamonds.
Nauru’s previous high standard of living was caused by the total removal of their original six feet of guano. When that was all gone, the island state reverted to poverty.
There has been an attempt at the United Nations’ Statistical Office, to introduce additional statistical tables, to show how the calculation of GDP would be affected if there was popular appeal for the introduction of depletion of finite stocks, similar to depreciation, but this approach hasn’t get very far.,
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POPULATION PRESSURES
by Derek Hudson
This paper is somewhat unusually structured. It consists firstly of a large number of statistical facts. After going through all of those, the reader is asked to find his or her own conclusions. I will start the ball rolling, by giving my own conclusions. But I am by no means saying that reasonable men and women should not come to different conclusions from mine.
Two quotations, to give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem:
“ Four people are born every second of every day. Conservative estimates suggest that there will be 10 billion people on earth by 2025. That is billions more than the natural resources of our plant can sustain without big changes in how we use and manage them.” [A.D. Barnosky & E.A. Hadley]
“Chinese women, who were bearing an average of six children as recently as 1965, are now having around 1.5” [Hania Zlomak, Director of the UN Population Division]
Questions that arise
(a) Is there a possibility that the world’s population will peak sometime this century?
(b) What will happen to the 500,000 young Chinese men who fail to find wives?
(c) How strong is the world’s fertility rate dependent on the level of women’s education? How much of reduced fertility is dependent on the availability of contraception?
(d) Is there any correlation between population growth and the local level of democracy?
- Introduction
“Population Pressures” is a multi-faceted subject. Closely related subjects include security in old age, climate change, food scarcity and water shortages. As such, anyone’s choice of material is bound to be somewhat subjective. My own choice focuses on the resources that will be needed to sustain us.
I have tried to group the facts below into categories. The first is pure fact about the rate at which the world’s population is growing. The second is the economic and climatic implications derived from this particular rate of growth.
- Rates of growth
The earth’s human population has been growing steadily since prehistoric times, but the last 200 years have seen human numbers grow exponentially. For example, the world’s population grew from 150 million in the year 1 to 300 million in the year 1000, and to 1.000 million in 1830. The population then leaped to 5,000 million in 1910 and then sprinted on to 6,350 million in 2004. The worry is that the world might run out of food, water and other resources if the world’s population were to continue to grow at such a high rate, particularly in developing countries.
Below, I have selected thirty one discussion points that underlay discussions about the earth’s population pressures. These are grouped together under 6 headings:
(2)
AAA Population statistics
BBB The connection between climate change and population change
CCC Family planning
DDD Our ageing population
EEE Limitations to the rise in living standards
FFF The impact of migration
GGG Consumer pressures
AAA. POPULATION STATISTICS
(a) Until recently, the world’s population grew “exponentially”, that is by a constant annual proportion. This would obviously be unsustainable, if it were to continue.
(b) Fortunately, there are strong reasons to believe that this pattern is changing rapidly, at least in the richer parts of the world. However, the world’s population is still rising by 70 million per year. In fact, it seems to be a general rule that the poorer the people are, the faster the rate at which their population grows. Several least developed countries are heading for a five-fold increase in population, including Burundi, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.
An extreme example of rapid population growth is that of the combined population of (the recently separated) Sudan and South Sudan. Their combined population grew from 8.3 million in 1950 to 58.5 million in 2010.That seven-fold increase in numbers was accompanied by a 21 year long civil war. In February 2014, a third of the population were desperately in need of food aid, nearly a million people had been displaced, tens of thousands had been killed, and government forces and rebels were razing towns for what seemed like no good reason.
(c) Population growth is widely regarded as a contributing to a number of other important factors. 70 percent of deforestation worldwide is directly caused by population growth. This in turn contributes to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn contributes to global warming. Rapid and persistent population growth can force farmers and fishermen to over-exploit fragile ecosystems, with damaging results.
(d) Britain’ animosity towards immigration should be addressed, not exploited. [This attitude may be compared with the attitude of Canadians, who warmly welcome immigrants from every corner of the globe, albeit with checks on their ability to sustain themselves in Canada.]
(e) Any attempt at officially enforced birth control may lead to even bigger problems than it solves. For example, China’s “one baby” policy has led to the current situation where there are 500,000 more marriageable young men in China than there are marriageable young women. Another unexpected consequence is that the outlook for future growth in China will be reduced by the much smaller than expected limitations to the rise in living standards of the population.
(f) Nowadays, women are living longer than men. Surprisingly, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, starting at the beginning of the 19th century..This explains why earlier statisticians always assumed that men and women would live for the same number of years after their retirement, and designed pension schemes accordingly.
(3)
This incorrect assumption (of equal longevity), led in turn to the unfortunate result that “defined benefit” pension plans are no longer economically viable.
The reason for the recent changes in women’s longevity, is that they are no longer giving birth to so many children., thus reducing significantly the risk of dying in child birth.The resulting change to smaller families has of course unleashed a flood of capable female talent which was previously obscured by the time and effort devoted to bring up a large family. This has prompted a reapid increase in many counties’ Gross Domestic Product, as more and more women enter the world of work.
(h) The “neutral” replacement rate (ie the fertility rate that keeps a population constant) is 2.1 in industrialised countries, and 2.3 on a world-wide average. [This number is more than 2 because not all women will reproduce.] Any country with a lower fertility rate will see its natural population (excluding immigrants) decline, eg Russia and Germany.
The 8 countries with the highest fertility rates are Nigeria, (leading to the world’s 3rd largest population by 2050), India, Tanzania, DR Congo, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia and the United States of America.
Between now and 2050, if all of the above-listed countries brought their fertility rates down to replacement level, we would end up with a global population which would stabilise at a little over 10 billion.
Half a child below replacement would allow us to stabilise at around 7 billion. Just half a child above replacement rate would produce a global population of around 16 billion. So whichever way you look at it, we’re adding close to 3 billion people to the planet over the next 34 years
(i) In the decade 2000 to 2010, China’s population grew by 6%, reaching a little over 1.3 billion people. In the same decade, Beijing’s population increased by 30%, from about 14 million to 20 million. [The difference in rates of growth, comparing 6% with 30%, was due to rural to urban migration within China].
The “one baby” policy also had another unintended consequence. After the Chinese government had made intra womb scanning illegal, and had ordered the scanners to be locked away, the persons with the keys received an inundation of bribes to open the doors so that the scans would allow prospective parents to abort their baby if it was seen to be a girl.
Beijing is experiencing major problems:- a water supply that can only support 60% of the city’s residents, inadequate housing and public transportation, lack of access to medical care and education, and air pollution so bad that anyone venturing outdoors is recommended to wear a face mask.
(j) By 2050, the world’s five least developed countries, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, will be among the 20 most populated countries in the world. And, by 2100, three more less developed countries will climb into the top twenty list, namely Niger, Sudan and Mocambique. Africa will soon be the only continent where the population is still continuing to grow.
(k) The majority of the earth’s population is young. For example, in the 1971 population census in Botswana, the median age was 15. [Half the population was younger than 15 years old, half were older].
- ll) Half the world already has a fertility rate which is below the long-term replacement level. Examples are Russia and Germany. Conversely, the USA still has a population which continues to increase rapidly, even not counting the effects of immigration.
(m) In a 2011 survey of British adults, four out of five people thought that the UK’s population was too high, with almost half saying it was already much too high. Two thirds said that the UK would be a better place to live in if it had fewer people. Over half agreed with reducing net migration.
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(n) Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. 40 years ago, the average woman had between five and six children. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the
replacement level, which is 2.3. This rapid change in the “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) is usually called “The Demographic Transition”
(o) It took 28 years for the world’s population to increase from 1 to 2 billion. It is estimated that it will take only 14 years to increase from 7 to 8 billion.
BBB THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND POPULATION MOVEMENTS
(p) Governments in Asia and the Pacific need to prepare for a large increase in climate-induced migration in the coming years. One Pacific island has already been abandoned, while others are making plans to evacuate their low lying islands. Yet no international co-operation mechanism has been set up to manage these potential migration flows.
(q) An excellent counter-example is provided by the Indian ocean country of Mauritius. They first eliminated malaria, then they raised living standards, then they emphasised education for young women, then they improved health care and brought down death rates, then they improved access to contraceptives and they made education free. The result was a 60% decline in the fertility rate (with no coercion) by 1980, and a 70% decline by 2010.
The government also introduced helpful economic measures (such as a tax free export zone) which massively increased Mauritius’ international competitiveness. The government also used a psychological “weapon”. They persuaded their multi ethnic population (four major major racial and religious groups) to tolerate diversity of cultural and racial traditions, and also the need to be open to innovation. Mauritius’ carrot and stick approach began lowering the fertility rate very fast. By the year 2000, over a 40 year period, China’s TFR rate had fallen from 6 to 2.5.
CCC FAMILY PLANNING
(e) As everyone knows, population planning has been restricted among those people with strong religious objections. Fortunately, better educated young women are starting to ignore such conservative religious advice.
DDD OUR AGEING POPULATION
(j) The world’s population is ageing dramatically. Demographers expect the average age of populations to continue to rise throughout this century. This is resulting in the ratio of retired people to working people (the “dependency ratio”) increasing rapidly. This in turn means that young people will be forced to have to look after their parents much more than was the case when parents could depend exclusively on their pensions.
(p) The benefits of conception use are dramatic and far-reaching. They include preventing unintended pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions, and reducing the number of deaths and illnesses related to complications of childbirth. Contraceptive use enables a couple to have the number of children they want and can care for, can reduce the transmission of HIV, help reduce pressure on scarce natural resources, and can improve educational opportunities.
(q) Among married women, unmet need for contraception is highest among those aged 15 to 24.
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EEE LIMITATIONS TO THE RISE IN LIVING STANDARDS
- q) Progress in reducing hunger in the developing countries has slowed to a crawl. In some regions, the number of under-nourished people has actually been growing in recent years. There are still 906 million
hungry people in developing countries. The number of people currently living on less than one dollar per day is about 980 million.
(r) More than any other resource, water shortage is becoming a critical issue both for agriculture (70% of water use), and 30% for industry and households.
FFF THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION
(r) We live in an age of migration, with a record 200 million people now living outside their country of birth [Hazel, Philip and I are three of them], with approximately 20 additional million people wanting to change their country, and with an additional 214 million persons who have been displaced within their OWN country, such as the Syrians. One out of every 33 persons in the world today is a migrant, whereas in 2000 only one out of 35 persons was a migrant.
The increase in migration has many different causes. The main one is the differences in standards of living. For example, the UK has ten times the GDP per head as Bulgaria. Similarly, many Africans try to get tom Europe, in the hopes of raising both their own standard of living, and in the hope that they will be able to to send remittances back to their home country, as for example, Mexico.
Migration as such is not new, but widening inequality between high- and low-income countries acts as a strong driver for migration.
(x) People of course tend to migrate to the most desirable areas, including to richer areas within one’s own country. which, in the absence of equally fast growth of infrastructure, causes some major social problems. For example, in the state of Bangalore in India, the influx of people has outpaced both the infrastructure and the availability of natural resources, making it routine for electricity and water to be available for only parts of the day (but only in those parts of the city that even have any access at all).
GGG POPULATION PRESSURES
(y) The link between rapid growth, local wars and escalating global conflict is one of the most important population growth impacts. With rapid population growth usually come important changes in the “population pyramid”. This refers to the growing number of people in infant, child-age, teenage, young adult, older adult and geriatric age groups. Rapid population growth bulges the teenage and young adult categories, which means that there are just too many curious, energetic young people with no productive way to channel their energy.
This “inverted pyramid” also means that more and more retired people are being supported by fewer and fewer young people in work, who have to support their elderly grandparents. In addition, the workforce of people in the working age category tends to experience much higher proportions of unemployment. As mentioned above, this phenomenon is adding to the wolrd-wide pressure on pension funds.
(z) The world is fast running out of water. The Colorado River basin in the USA provides an example. From 2004 to 2013, the surface water depletion – evidenced by drying up reservoirs, was paltry compared to what was depleted underground. The total (surface plus aquifer) water depletion has so far come to 53 million acre-feet, which was about equal to submerging the entire United Kingdom under a foot of water.
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The Colorado River story is not an anomaly. In seven years beginning with 2003, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, in the Tigris and Euphrates drainage area, saw their water reserves decline by a volume equivalent to
the entire Dead Sea. On the boundary between Israel and Jordan, the River Jordan has slowed to a trickle, with the result that the Dead Sea is steadily shrinking.
Other major aquifers that are draining fast include the North China plain, Australia’s Canning Basin, north-western India, the Great Plains of the USA, and parts of Brazil and Argentina. Many of these aquifers
were filled up with pre- historic water that will take more than 1,000 years to refill. There is not enough water falling out of the sky to slake the global thirst.
It would be OK if we were only drinking water we needed, but what we need for drinking and personal use is only a metaphorical drop in the bucket, less than 10% of of all the water used. For example, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with more than 2 million people, more than 95% of small farmers’ wells have already dried up.
Satellite subterranean X rays reconnaissance shows that ground water aquifers have been depleted all over the world, over the last decade.
Growing enough food requires us to consume 70% of all the water we use, except that in the USA, it’s 85%. And, as the world’s standards of living improve, more electricity will be required. In times of plenty, there is no problem. But when water starts to get scarce, an irresolvable conflict between growing food and generating adequate electricity will arise. That can easily lead to water riots, as happened in Pakistan in 2012.
(aa) If we now throw climate change into the mix, more electricity is required during a hotter climate for keeping air conditioners going. Add to that that many more people will move into higher economic classes, more electricity will be demanded as well as more food is needed. The bottom line is that by 2040 the world will face insurmountable water shortages, if things keep on going as before. There is a big risk that this will give rise to international warfare. Recently, the USA bombed Iraq again, because ISIL had taken control of the huge Mosul dam in the centre of Iraq – the main source of water and electricity generation for all the downstream communities.
Other countries that have been involved in water skirmishes are Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, China, Columbia, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gaza, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, Somalia, South Africa, USA and Yemen.
“The implications for the world’s resources are stark and sobering: global demand for food and water is expected to increase by 50 percent and 30 percent, respectively, by 2030; the pressure on copper, lead, zinc and corn is already becoming unsustainable, and no one has a clue where the energy is going to come from”
The world will be drawn into a war for resources …. I think we will see more wars”. [Dambisa Moyo, Goldman Sachs, New York]
(ab) Right now, about 1.1 billion people (roughly one in seven of us) lack adequate access to water. Many of them will have to make do with only 5 litres per day, even though the World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 20 litres per day. Projections indicate that by 2025, the number of people short of water will be around 3 billion. In addition, one third of the earth’s population gets much of its water from rivers whose sources are glaciers. If climate change causes these glaciers to shrink, more than one quarter of the people on the planet could be devastated.
“Each person requires 50 to 100 times more water to produce the food they eat than they use in their home. There will, however, be just enough water if the proportion of animal based foods is limited to 5 percent of our our total calories, and if considerable regional water deficits can be met by a well organised and reliable
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system of international food trade.”[Stockholm International Water Institute, 2012] Itis well known that vegetarians require far less water to generate the food that they eat.
Life expectancy at birth
| Date
|
Remarks, including life expectancy at birth (LEB)
|
Comments | |
| Paleolithic * | LEB = 33 | * about 2.6 million years ago | |
| Neolithic ** | LEB = 33 | ** about 10.200 BC to 4,000 BC | |
| Mediaeval England | LEB = 30 | ||
| Early modern
England |
LEB = 35 | ||
| 1250 | LEB = 64 | ||
| 1350 | LEB – 45 | Bubonic plague, or “Black Death” | |
| Other statistics | |||
| Population(millions) | Remarks | Comments | |
| 1 | 150 | High rates of both infant and childhood mortality | People lived in small settlements |
| 1000 | 753 | “Black death” kills off one quarter of the world’s population | Gradual improvements of agriculture and medicine; move to larger communities |
| Middle ages | Primitive communities regulated their population sizes by spacing out their babies, every four years, partly because of the effect of lactation | The transition from foraging to farming increased the standard of living, hence more babies survived | |
| 1830 | 1,000 | Industrial revolution starts slowly in the 1800s, assisted by the move away from remote rural hamlets towards towns | Improved methods of agriculture, starting in the 1700s |
| 1900 | 1,600 | Industrial revolution in full swing | Further improvements to medicine |
| 1988 | 5,000 | Estimated to be half of the world’s peak population | |
| 2000 | 6,100 | Due to massive improvements in medicine | Pressure on water supplies |
| 2025?? | 8,000 | Negative growth among richer countries, and slower growth among some middle income countries, eg Botswana | A cure of any of the biggest killers, eg malaria and TB, would have an enormous impact on the developing world |
- Some examples
2.1 An example of the “Demographic Transition”
It happens that I have studied Botswana’s demographic transition in great detail. In the 1971 population census, the desired number of babies per woman was 8.0 (four boys and for girls), but the actual number of children per woman was 6.0, as shown by the 1971 Population Census.. Thatbexplains why family planning was so unsuccessful.
But, with rising living standards and with better access to education, especially for girls, by 2011 the desired number of children per woman in Botswana had fallen to 3.4, but the actual number of children per woman had only fallen to 4.3. This was after a nine-fold increase in the real (inflation-adjusted) Gross Domestic Product per head during the same period, plus a 95% participation rate of female primary education.
2.2 Former checks and balances
In the past, population growth was kept in check by the inability of countries to increase their agricultural production at the same rate as their populations were growing. This strong “brake” has now been significantly modified by two factors, namely the “green revolution” and development aid. The latter is for example supporting 8 million Ethiopians on more-or-less permanent food aid. In addition, the United Nations is looking after something like 6 million refugees in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey, especially the very large number of Palestinian refugees..
2.3 An example of the effect of improved medicine
In Sri Lanka in the 1950s, infant mortality (under one year old) was about 105 deaths for every 1,000 live births. By the 1990s, the rate had fallen to below 20 out of every 1,000 live births.
This was due to immunisations, oral re-hydration therapy and birth spacing. With health conditions improving so rapidly, birth rates in developing countries did not have time to change as rapidly as they did in Europe. This time lag (compared to Europe, for example) between the drop in death rates and birth rates produced unprecedented levels of population growth. This contributed to a rise in life expectancy at birth from about 42 years in the early 1950s to 56 years in the late 1970s, and to much greater figures nowadays.
In the early 1950s, Kenya’s annual population growth rate approached an unheard-of 4 percent. Another example is that Pakistan had a life expectancy of 41 years and a total fertility rate of 6.6, one of the highest ever recorded.
- The impact of Aids on Botswana
In 2000, after Aids was discovered in Botswana in 1985, LEB = 49.
In 2011, after the introduction of free anti retro viral medication, LEB = 66
3.2 My wife and I observed a mid career woman die of AIDS. She was followed by her own teenager daughter, her 52 year old mother, her 52 year old step-father, and her 9 month old niece, whose weight at death equalled her birth weight.
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3.3 The manager of a large mine saw that he would have to beef up the mine hospital, in order to help the increasing number of HIV+ mineworkers. He accordingly asked his chief medical officer to go on a retraining
course, on how best to administer anti retro viral medication. The two of them recognised that the mine hospital
would need more beds, and more nurses. The question was, by how much should the mine’s medical effort be expanded?
The mine manager then asked to have a meeting with the mine workers’ union. He explained that he would be willing to give every mine worker an HIV test, and that he would only use the information for statistical purposes, to help him with his forward planning at the mine hospital. However, the union leader said that such information was strictly private, and that the mineworkers would therefore not go along with this idea.
The following compromise was then agreed. The mine manager would go ahead with the testing of each mine worker, but only on the strict understanding that the individual mine workers would NOT be told of their individual status. The prevalence rate turned out to be 61%, and the mine manger could plan accordingly.
- Further comments
4.1 The main demographic characteristics of this century are expected to be:
(a) ageing of societies, which will spread to most countries, accompanied by a massive increase in dementia;
(b) slower global population growth, but with major regional differences;
(c) migration, especially that caused by wars, economic differences, and environmental factors (such as inhabited islands expecting to be submerged;) some time in the second half of this century;
(d) massive world-wide increases in both consumption and pollution;
(e) “Peak” population some time this century, though the exact date is not yet known;
(f) no one has been able to come up with a solution to Japan’s demographic problem.
4.2 World food production
(a) Since the 18th century, various amateur statisticians, led by an Anglican clergyman, Rev Thomas Malthus, (1766 to 1834) have attempted to “prove” that the world is running out of food. The problem was with their hypotheses. They assumed that the world’s population would continue to grown faster than the rate of increase of productivity of the world’s cereal production. When the latter part of this hypotheses turned out to be false, their gloomy prediction fell away.
- References
“Population Growth and Migration” edited by Lisa Firth. Published by Independence 44pp.(2012).
“10 billion :- the coming demographic crisis” , by Danny Dorling. Published by Constable. 438pp. (2013).
“End Game, tipping point for planet earth”, by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadley. Published by William Collins. 264 pp. (2015)
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“An Essay on the Principle of Population”, by rev Thomas Robert Malthus. Published by Oxford World Classics in 1978.
Appendix
The bias inherent in the way that GDP is measured
“Growth” is seen as a kind of holy grail, to be striven after at all costs. But how is this growth measured? If a biased method is used, shouldn’t we modify this implied goal so as to take account of the harmful consequences of our pursuit of growth?
The idea of using the Gross Domestic Product per person (GDP/head) is heavily biased. It doesn’t takes into account the depletion of the earth’s finite resources. For example, Botswana’s GDP Growth has been
phenomenal, but only at the expense of using up nearly all of Botswana’s stock of un-mined diamonds.
Nauru’s previous high standard of living was caused by the total removal of their original six feet of guano. When that was all gone, the island state reverted to poverty.
There has been an attempt at the United Nations’ Statistical Office, to introduce additional statistical tables, to show how the calculation of GDP would be affected if there was popular appeal for the introduction of depletion of finite stocks, similar to depreciation, but this approach hasn’t get very far.,
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POPULATION PRESSURES
by Derek Hudson
This paper is somewhat unusually structured. It consists firstly of a large number of statistical facts. After going through all of those, the reader is asked to find his or her own conclusions. I will start the ball rolling, by giving my own conclusions. But I am by no means saying that reasonable men and women should not come to different conclusions from mine.
Two quotations, to give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem:
“ Four people are born every second of every day. Conservative estimates suggest that there will be 10 billion people on earth by 2025. That is billions more than the natural resources of our plant can sustain without big changes in how we use and manage them.” [A.D. Barnosky & E.A. Hadley]
“Chinese women, who were bearing an average of six children as recently as 1965, are now having around 1.5” [Hania Zlomak, Director of the UN Population Division]
Questions that arise
(a) Is there a possibility that the world’s population will peak sometime this century?
(b) What will happen to the 500,000 young Chinese men who fail to find wives?
(c) How strong is the world’s fertility rate dependent on the level of women’s education? How much of reduced fertility is dependent on the availability of contraception?
(d) Is there any correlation between population growth and the local level of democracy?
1. Introduction
“Population Pressures” is a multi-faceted subject. Closely related subjects include security in old age, climate change, food scarcity and water shortages. As such, anyone’s choice of material is bound to be somewhat subjective. My own choice focuses on the resources that will be needed to sustain us.
I have tried to group the facts below into categories. The first is pure fact about the rate at which the world’s population is growing. The second is the economic and climatic implications derived from this particular rate of growth.
2. Rates of growth
The earth’s human population has been growing steadily since prehistoric times, but the last 200 years have seen human numbers grow exponentially. For example, the world’s population grew from 150 million in the year 1 to 300 million in the year 1000, and to 1.000 million in 1830. The population then leaped to 5,000 million in 1910 and then sprinted on to 6,350 million in 2004. The worry is that the world might run out of food, water and other resources if the world’s population were to continue to grow at such a high rate, particularly in developing countries.
Below, I have selected thirty one discussion points that underlay discussions about the earth’s population pressures. These are grouped together under 6 headings:
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AAA Population statistics
BBB The connection between climate change and population change
CCC Family planning
DDD Our ageing population
EEE Limitations to the rise in living standards
FFF The impact of migration
GGG Consumer pressures
AAA. POPULATION STATISTICS
(a) Until recently, the world’s population grew “exponentially”, that is by a constant annual proportion. This would obviously be unsustainable, if it were to continue.
(b) Fortunately, there are strong reasons to believe that this pattern is changing rapidly, at least in the richer parts of the world. However, the world’s population is still rising by 70 million per year. In fact, it seems to be a general rule that the poorer the people are, the faster the rate at which their population grows. Several least developed countries are heading for a five-fold increase in population, including Burundi, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.
An extreme example of rapid population growth is that of the combined population of (the recently separated) Sudan and South Sudan. Their combined population grew from 8.3 million in 1950 to 58.5 million in 2010.That seven-fold increase in numbers was accompanied by a 21 year long civil war. In February 2014, a third of the population were desperately in need of food aid, nearly a million people had been displaced, tens of thousands had been killed, and government forces and rebels were razing towns for what seemed like no good reason.
(c) Population growth is widely regarded as a contributing to a number of other important factors. 70 percent of deforestation worldwide is directly caused by population growth. This in turn contributes to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn contributes to global warming. Rapid and persistent population growth can force farmers and fishermen to over-exploit fragile ecosystems, with damaging results.
(d) Britain’ animosity towards immigration should be addressed, not exploited. [This attitude may be compared with the attitude of Canadians, who warmly welcome immigrants from every corner of the globe, albeit with checks on their ability to sustain themselves in Canada.]
(e) Any attempt at officially enforced birth control may lead to even bigger problems than it solves. For example, China’s “one baby” policy has led to the current situation where there are 500,000 more marriageable young men in China than there are marriageable young women. Another unexpected consequence is that the outlook for future growth in China will be reduced by the much smaller than expected limitations to the rise in living standards of the population.
(f) Nowadays, women are living longer than men. Surprisingly, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, starting at the beginning of the 19th century..This explains why earlier statisticians always assumed that men and women would live for the same number of years after their retirement, and designed pension schemes accordingly.
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This incorrect assumption (of equal longevity), led in turn to the unfortunate result that “defined benefit” pension plans are no longer economically viable.
The reason for the recent changes in women’s longevity, is that they are no longer giving birth to so many children., thus reducing significantly the risk of dying in child birth.The resulting change to smaller families has of course unleashed a flood of capable female talent which was previously obscured by the time and effort devoted to bring up a large family. This has prompted a reapid increase in many counties’ Gross Domestic Product, as more and more women enter the world of work.
(h) The “neutral” replacement rate (ie the fertility rate that keeps a population constant) is 2.1 in industrialised countries, and 2.3 on a world-wide average. [This number is more than 2 because not all women will reproduce.] Any country with a lower fertility rate will see its natural population (excluding immigrants) decline, eg Russia and Germany.
The 8 countries with the highest fertility rates are Nigeria, (leading to the world’s 3rd largest population by 2050), India, Tanzania, DR Congo, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia and the United States of America.
Between now and 2050, if all of the above-listed countries brought their fertility rates down to replacement level, we would end up with a global population which would stabilise at a little over 10 billion.
Half a child below replacement would allow us to stabilise at around 7 billion. Just half a child above replacement rate would produce a global population of around 16 billion. So whichever way you look at it, we’re adding close to 3 billion people to the planet over the next 34 years
(i) In the decade 2000 to 2010, China’s population grew by 6%, reaching a little over 1.3 billion people. In the same decade, Beijing’s population increased by 30%, from about 14 million to 20 million. [The difference in rates of growth, comparing 6% with 30%, was due to rural to urban migration within China].
The “one baby” policy also had another unintended consequence. After the Chinese government had made intra womb scanning illegal, and had ordered the scanners to be locked away, the persons with the keys received an inundation of bribes to open the doors so that the scans would allow prospective parents to abort their baby if it was seen to be a girl.
Beijing is experiencing major problems:- a water supply that can only support 60% of the city’s residents, inadequate housing and public transportation, lack of access to medical care and education, and air pollution so bad that anyone venturing outdoors is recommended to wear a face mask.
(j) By 2050, the world’s five least developed countries, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, will be among the 20 most populated countries in the world. And, by 2100, three more less developed countries will climb into the top twenty list, namely Niger, Sudan and Mocambique. Africa will soon be the only continent where the population is still continuing to grow.
(k) The majority of the earth’s population is young. For example, in the 1971 population census in Botswana, the median age was 15. [Half the population was younger than 15 years old, half were older].
ll) Half the world already has a fertility rate which is below the long-term replacement level. Examples are Russia and Germany. Conversely, the USA still has a population which continues to increase rapidly, even not counting the effects of immigration.
(m) In a 2011 survey of British adults, four out of five people thought that the UK’s population was too high, with almost half saying it was already much too high. Two thirds said that the UK would be a better place to live in if it had fewer people. Over half agreed with reducing net migration.
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(n) Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. 40 years ago, the average woman had between five and six children. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the
replacement level, which is 2.3. This rapid change in the “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) is usually called “The Demographic Transition”
(o) It took 28 years for the world’s population to increase from 1 to 2 billion. It is estimated that it will take only 14 years to increase from 7 to 8 billion.
BBB THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND POPULATION MOVEMENTS
(p) Governments in Asia and the Pacific need to prepare for a large increase in climate-induced migration in the coming years. One Pacific island has already been abandoned, while others are making plans to evacuate their low lying islands. Yet no international co-operation mechanism has been set up to manage these potential migration flows.
(q) An excellent counter-example is provided by the Indian ocean country of Mauritius. They first eliminated malaria, then they raised living standards, then they emphasised education for young women, then they improved health care and brought down death rates, then they improved access to contraceptives and they made education free. The result was a 60% decline in the fertility rate (with no coercion) by 1980, and a 70% decline by 2010.
The government also introduced helpful economic measures (such as a tax free export zone) which massively increased Mauritius’ international competitiveness. The government also used a psychological “weapon”. They persuaded their multi ethnic population (four major major racial and religious groups) to tolerate diversity of cultural and racial traditions, and also the need to be open to innovation. Mauritius’ carrot and stick approach began lowering the fertility rate very fast. By the year 2000, over a 40 year period, China’s TFR rate had fallen from 6 to 2.5.
CCC FAMILY PLANNING
(e) As everyone knows, population planning has been restricted among those people with strong religious objections. Fortunately, better educated young women are starting to ignore such conservative religious advice.
DDD OUR AGEING POPULATION
(j) The world’s population is ageing dramatically. Demographers expect the average age of populations to continue to rise throughout this century. This is resulting in the ratio of retired people to working people (the “dependency ratio”) increasing rapidly. This in turn means that young people will be forced to have to look after their parents much more than was the case when parents could depend exclusively on their pensions.
(p) The benefits of conception use are dramatic and far-reaching. They include preventing unintended pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions, and reducing the number of deaths and illnesses related to complications of childbirth. Contraceptive use enables a couple to have the number of children they want and can care for, can reduce the transmission of HIV, help reduce pressure on scarce natural resources, and can improve educational opportunities.
(q) Among married women, unmet need for contraception is highest among those aged 15 to 24.
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EEE LIMITATIONS TO THE RISE IN LIVING STANDARDS
q) Progress in reducing hunger in the developing countries has slowed to a crawl. In some regions, the number of under-nourished people has actually been growing in recent years. There are still 906 million
hungry people in developing countries. The number of people currently living on less than one dollar per day is about 980 million.
(r) More than any other resource, water shortage is becoming a critical issue both for agriculture (70% of water use), and 30% for industry and households.
FFF THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION
(r) We live in an age of migration, with a record 200 million people now living outside their country of birth [Hazel, Philip and I are three of them], with approximately 20 additional million people wanting to change their country, and with an additional 214 million persons who have been displaced within their OWN country, such as the Syrians. One out of every 33 persons in the world today is a migrant, whereas in 2000 only one out of 35 persons was a migrant.
The increase in migration has many different causes. The main one is the differences in standards of living. For example, the UK has ten times the GDP per head as Bulgaria. Similarly, many Africans try to get tom Europe, in the hopes of raising both their own standard of living, and in the hope that they will be able to to send remittances back to their home country, as for example, Mexico.
Migration as such is not new, but widening inequality between high- and low-income countries acts as a strong driver for migration.
(x) People of course tend to migrate to the most desirable areas, including to richer areas within one’s own country. which, in the absence of equally fast growth of infrastructure, causes some major social problems. For example, in the state of Bangalore in India, the influx of people has outpaced both the infrastructure and the availability of natural resources, making it routine for electricity and water to be available for only parts of the day (but only in those parts of the city that even have any access at all).
GGG POPULATION PRESSURES
(y) The link between rapid growth, local wars and escalating global conflict is one of the most important population growth impacts. With rapid population growth usually come important changes in the “population pyramid”. This refers to the growing number of people in infant, child-age, teenage, young adult, older adult and geriatric age groups. Rapid population growth bulges the teenage and young adult categories, which means that there are just too many curious, energetic young people with no productive way to channel their energy.
This “inverted pyramid” also means that more and more retired people are being supported by fewer and fewer young people in work, who have to support their elderly grandparents. In addition, the workforce of people in the working age category tends to experience much higher proportions of unemployment. As mentioned above, this phenomenon is adding to the wolrd-wide pressure on pension funds.
(z) The world is fast running out of water. The Colorado River basin in the USA provides an example. From 2004 to 2013, the surface water depletion – evidenced by drying up reservoirs, was paltry compared to what was depleted underground. The total (surface plus aquifer) water depletion has so far come to 53 million acre-feet, which was about equal to submerging the entire United Kingdom under a foot of water.
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The Colorado River story is not an anomaly. In seven years beginning with 2003, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, in the Tigris and Euphrates drainage area, saw their water reserves decline by a volume equivalent to
the entire Dead Sea. On the boundary between Israel and Jordan, the River Jordan has slowed to a trickle, with the result that the Dead Sea is steadily shrinking.
Other major aquifers that are draining fast include the North China plain, Australia’s Canning Basin, north-western India, the Great Plains of the USA, and parts of Brazil and Argentina. Many of these aquifers
were filled up with pre- historic water that will take more than 1,000 years to refill. There is not enough water falling out of the sky to slake the global thirst.
It would be OK if we were only drinking water we needed, but what we need for drinking and personal use is only a metaphorical drop in the bucket, less than 10% of of all the water used. For example, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with more than 2 million people, more than 95% of small farmers’ wells have already dried up.
Satellite subterranean X rays reconnaissance shows that ground water aquifers have been depleted all over the world, over the last decade.
Growing enough food requires us to consume 70% of all the water we use, except that in the USA, it’s 85%. And, as the world’s standards of living improve, more electricity will be required. In times of plenty, there is no problem. But when water starts to get scarce, an irresolvable conflict between growing food and generating adequate electricity will arise. That can easily lead to water riots, as happened in Pakistan in 2012.
(aa) If we now throw climate change into the mix, more electricity is required during a hotter climate for keeping air conditioners going. Add to that that many more people will move into higher economic classes, more electricity will be demanded as well as more food is needed. The bottom line is that by 2040 the world will face insurmountable water shortages, if things keep on going as before. There is a big risk that this will give rise to international warfare. Recently, the USA bombed Iraq again, because ISIL had taken control of the huge Mosul dam in the centre of Iraq – the main source of water and electricity generation for all the downstream communities.
Other countries that have been involved in water skirmishes are Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, China, Columbia, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gaza, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, Somalia, South Africa, USA and Yemen.
“The implications for the world’s resources are stark and sobering: global demand for food and water is expected to increase by 50 percent and 30 percent, respectively, by 2030; the pressure on copper, lead, zinc and corn is already becoming unsustainable, and no one has a clue where the energy is going to come from”
The world will be drawn into a war for resources …. I think we will see more wars”. [Dambisa Moyo, Goldman Sachs, New York]
(ab) Right now, about 1.1 billion people (roughly one in seven of us) lack adequate access to water. Many of them will have to make do with only 5 litres per day, even though the World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 20 litres per day. Projections indicate that by 2025, the number of people short of water will be around 3 billion. In addition, one third of the earth’s population gets much of its water from rivers whose sources are glaciers. If climate change causes these glaciers to shrink, more than one quarter of the people on the planet could be devastated.
“Each person requires 50 to 100 times more water to produce the food they eat than they use in their home. There will, however, be just enough water if the proportion of animal based foods is limited to 5 percent of our our total calories, and if considerable regional water deficits can be met by a well organised and reliable
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system of international food trade.”[Stockholm International Water Institute, 2012] Itis well known that vegetarians require far less water to generate the food that they eat.
Life expectancy at birth
Date
Remarks, including life expectancy at birth (LEB)
Comments
Paleolithic * LEB = 33 * about 2.6 million years ago
Neolithic ** LEB = 33 ** about 10.200 BC to 4,000 BC
Mediaeval England LEB = 30
Early modern
England LEB = 35
1250 LEB = 64
1350 LEB – 45 Bubonic plague, or “Black Death”
Other statistics
Population(millions) Remarks Comments
1 150 High rates of both infant and childhood mortality People lived in small settlements
1000 753 “Black death” kills off one quarter of the world’s population Gradual improvements of agriculture and medicine; move to larger communities
Middle ages Primitive communities regulated their population sizes by spacing out their babies, every four years, partly because of the effect of lactation The transition from foraging to farming increased the standard of living, hence more babies survived
1830 1,000 Industrial revolution starts slowly in the 1800s, assisted by the move away from remote rural hamlets towards towns Improved methods of agriculture, starting in the 1700s
1900 1,600 Industrial revolution in full swing Further improvements to medicine
1988 5,000 Estimated to be half of the world’s peak population
2000 6,100 Due to massive improvements in medicine Pressure on water supplies
2025?? 8,000 Negative growth among richer countries, and slower growth among some middle income countries, eg Botswana A cure of any of the biggest killers, eg malaria and TB, would have an enormous impact on the developing world
2. Some examples
2.1 An example of the “Demographic Transition”
It happens that I have studied Botswana’s demographic transition in great detail. In the 1971 population census, the desired number of babies per woman was 8.0 (four boys and for girls), but the actual number of children per woman was 6.0, as shown by the 1971 Population Census.. Thatbexplains why family planning was so unsuccessful.
But, with rising living standards and with better access to education, especially for girls, by 2011 the desired number of children per woman in Botswana had fallen to 3.4, but the actual number of children per woman had only fallen to 4.3. This was after a nine-fold increase in the real (inflation-adjusted) Gross Domestic Product per head during the same period, plus a 95% participation rate of female primary education.
2.2 Former checks and balances
In the past, population growth was kept in check by the inability of countries to increase their agricultural production at the same rate as their populations were growing. This strong “brake” has now been significantly modified by two factors, namely the “green revolution” and development aid. The latter is for example supporting 8 million Ethiopians on more-or-less permanent food aid. In addition, the United Nations is looking after something like 6 million refugees in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey, especially the very large number of Palestinian refugees..
2.3 An example of the effect of improved medicine
In Sri Lanka in the 1950s, infant mortality (under one year old) was about 105 deaths for every 1,000 live births. By the 1990s, the rate had fallen to below 20 out of every 1,000 live births.
This was due to immunisations, oral re-hydration therapy and birth spacing. With health conditions improving so rapidly, birth rates in developing countries did not have time to change as rapidly as they did in Europe. This time lag (compared to Europe, for example) between the drop in death rates and birth rates produced unprecedented levels of population growth. This contributed to a rise in life expectancy at birth from about 42 years in the early 1950s to 56 years in the late 1970s, and to much greater figures nowadays.
In the early 1950s, Kenya’s annual population growth rate approached an unheard-of 4 percent. Another example is that Pakistan had a life expectancy of 41 years and a total fertility rate of 6.6, one of the highest ever recorded.
3. The impact of Aids on Botswana
In 2000, after Aids was discovered in Botswana in 1985, LEB = 49.
In 2011, after the introduction of free anti retro viral medication, LEB = 66
3.2 My wife and I observed a mid career woman die of AIDS. She was followed by her own teenager daughter, her 52 year old mother, her 52 year old step-father, and her 9 month old niece, whose weight at death equalled her birth weight.
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3.3 The manager of a large mine saw that he would have to beef up the mine hospital, in order to help the increasing number of HIV+ mineworkers. He accordingly asked his chief medical officer to go on a retraining
course, on how best to administer anti retro viral medication. The two of them recognised that the mine hospital
would need more beds, and more nurses. The question was, by how much should the mine’s medical effort be expanded?
The mine manager then asked to have a meeting with the mine workers’ union. He explained that he would be willing to give every mine worker an HIV test, and that he would only use the information for statistical purposes, to help him with his forward planning at the mine hospital. However, the union leader said that such information was strictly private, and that the mineworkers would therefore not go along with this idea.
The following compromise was then agreed. The mine manager would go ahead with the testing of each mine worker, but only on the strict understanding that the individual mine workers would NOT be told of their individual status. The prevalence rate turned out to be 61%, and the mine manger could plan accordingly.
4. Further comments
4.1 The main demographic characteristics of this century are expected to be:
(a) ageing of societies, which will spread to most countries, accompanied by a massive increase in dementia;
(b) slower global population growth, but with major regional differences;
(c) migration, especially that caused by wars, economic differences, and environmental factors (such as inhabited islands expecting to be submerged;) some time in the second half of this century;
(d) massive world-wide increases in both consumption and pollution;
(e) “Peak” population some time this century, though the exact date is not yet known;
(f) no one has been able to come up with a solution to Japan’s demographic problem.
4.2 World food production
(a) Since the 18th century, various amateur statisticians, led by an Anglican clergyman, Rev Thomas Malthus, (1766 to 1834) have attempted to “prove” that the world is running out of food. The problem was with their hypotheses. They assumed that the world’s population would continue to grown faster than the rate of increase of productivity of the world’s cereal production. When the latter part of this hypotheses turned out to be false, their gloomy prediction fell away.
5. References
“Population Growth and Migration” edited by Lisa Firth. Published by Independence 44pp.(2012).
“10 billion :- the coming demographic crisis” , by Danny Dorling. Published by Constable. 438pp. (2013).
“End Game, tipping point for planet earth”, by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadley. Published by William Collins. 264 pp. (2015)
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“An Essay on the Principle of Population”, by rev Thomas Robert Malthus. Published by Oxford World Classics in 1978.
Appendix
The bias inherent in the way that GDP is measured
“Growth” is seen as a kind of holy grail, to be striven after at all costs. But how is this growth measured? If a biased method is used, shouldn’t we modify this implied goal so as to take account of the harmful consequences of our pursuit of growth?
The idea of using the Gross Domestic Product per person (GDP/head) is heavily biased. It doesn’t takes into account the depletion of the earth’s finite resources. For example, Botswana’s GDP Growth has been
phenomenal, but only at the expense of using up nearly all of Botswana’s stock of un-mined diamonds.
Nauru’s previous high standard of living was caused by the total removal of their original six feet of guano. When that was all gone, the island state reverted to poverty.
There has been an attempt at the United Nations’ Statistical Office, to introduce additional statistical tables, to show how the calculation of GDP would be affected if there was popular appeal for the introduction of