The population paradox
By Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, 19 November 2008
IT IS astonishing how many demons get stirred up whenever you mention population – and sometimes even when you don’t. This magazine recently examined how modern economies predicated on growth are ravaging the planet. Our mailbag rapidly filled with letters asking why we didn’t emphasise the number one problem: population.
Has this become a politically taboo subject, they wanted to know. Don’t we realise that overpopulation is destroying the planet? What’s the point of saving resources when population in developing countries is spiralling? Can’t we pay people not to have babies?
Our global problem is that we are consuming vital resources at rates we cannot sustain, or at costs to the environment that we cannot or should not pay. That is happening both because of rising consumption by the rich, and rising numbers of poor people who consume the bare minimum.
So population is part of the problem – although if we had emphasised this, the letters would no doubt have complained of western, patriarchal plots to blame the depredations of the greedy rich on the babies of the poor. But the situation is not what many people seem to think. The righteous intensity surrounding this debate has obscured the fact that the story has changed. The “population bomb” has already gone off.
Traditionally, human societies needed high birth rates to balance high death rates. As they start defeating famine and disease, death rates drop. Then population soars until birth rates eventually fall too. Countries passing through this “demographic transition” have caused the global population to more than double since 1950.
The first societies to industrialise – Europe and its colonies – were first to make the switch. Now everyone is doing it, and for the same reason: if you’re fairly sure they’ll survive, two well-fed, well-educated kids make more economic sense than six starving, unemployable ones.
So birth rates have fallen dramatically – and voluntarily. Coercive birth control, including “paying people not to have babies,” was discredited and abandoned decades ago (though it may still sometimes happen in China). Nearly two-thirds of couples in poor countries now use birth control, and not because some patriarchal westerner told them to. In the 1970s, the government of Bangladesh offered people in the Matlab region low-cost contraceptive supplies and advice. Birth rates promptly fell well below neighbouring regions. So Bangladesh extended the service nationally and its birth rate plummeted from six children per woman to three. Given the choice, people want fewer children.
So do governments, whose own life expectancy falls when people multiply faster than they can be provided with food, water, medicine, schools and jobs. In 1989 Iran introduced free contraception nationwide. It experienced the fastest fall in birth rates ever seen: from five births per woman to two by 2000.
But here’s the rub. For countries making the transition, high birth rates in the recent past mean there are far more young people than old. So if these young people have only enough babies to replace themselves, there are still more births than deaths. Even when birth rates fall, this lag means populations keep growing for decades until birth and death rates even out.
On current trends of birth and death rates, the UN predicts that world population will hit 9.2 billion by 2050, before it stops climbing. Because of the time lag, even if everyone moved to birth rates of around two children per woman tomorrow, we would still hit 8.5 billion. This means the population explosion will continue.
We can’t solve the problem by forcing all those over-fertile poor people to stop reproducing, because they’ve mostly already done it. However, we can at least try to make sure that population peaks closer to the lower figure. There is most work to do in Africa, which has high birth rates that even AIDS deaths don’t dent. Women still want large families, for the old reasons: high infant mortality and desire for sons, field hands and support. Educating girls changes this by delaying marriage and raising both child survival and women’s power. Providing this basic human right will bring Africa through the transition, like everyone else.
Meanwhile many who want birth control can’t get it. In most of Asia and Latin America, women average 2.5 babies each. Still, people there say they want fewer. There is a huge unmet demand for birth control; 1 in 5 births – and 36 million abortions – in developing countries would not happen if people had more choice.
The UN Population Fund published a report last week pointing out that population efforts must be “culturally sensitive.” This is crucial, as the most effective way to bring down birth rates is to empower people to control their own reproduction, free of coercion from within their society or outside.
For the past eight years, the US has not funded birth control efforts, in order to appease religious extremists. Under a new president, many people hope that will change, and soon. Too much time has been wasted.
Debora MacKenzie is a consultant for New Scientist based in Brussels, Belgium
Linked from Overpopulation