Showing posts from category aging.
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Where Have All the Malthusians Gone?
›Forget youth bulges and population bombs; lately, the population story has been all about the baby bust. The cover of this month’s Foreign Policy features “Old World: The graying of the planet – and how it will change everything,” by Phillip Longman, and author Ted Fishman recently appeared in The New York Times and on NPR to talk about his book, Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How It Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival and Nation Against Nation. Nicholas Eberstadt covered similar issues in Foreign Affairs with his article, “The Demographic Future: What Population Growth – and Decline – Means for the Global Economy.”
To the extent that policymakers take away a sense of urgency to reform retirement institutions and potentially reevaluate military strategy, the recent spate of publications about aging is useful. But policymakers should not be misled into thinking that the population tide has turned and resources for education, development, and family planning are no longer necessary. While global population growth is slowing, it has not stopped, and the political and economic consequences of continued growth and youthful age structures across most of the Global South will be dire.
A Population Bomb…of Old People
Eberstadt, Fishman, and Longman argue for the need to prepare for a future where there are large proportions of elderly dependents and relatively few workers to support them, and they chronicle the many challenges that may result, including political resistance. The October protests in France against raising the pensionable age from 60 to 62 — which, despite the hullabaloo, fall far short of the levels needed to improve France’s long-term economic position — are but one example of the reform resistance they warn about.
The concern is that while the Global North – Europe and Japan in particular – scramble to meet the needs of their older citizens and preserve the health of their economies, their powerful positions in the international system are at risk. As Fishman states, “It now looks as if global power rests on how willing a country is to neglect its older citizens.” China, a country on the cusp of aging, has thus far chosen neglect over meaningful investment, stoking more fear that the Global North may fall behind.
Though a focus on economic health is useful, other aspects of their arguments do a disservice, particularly those that start from the premise that the days of Malthusian angst over the planet’s ability to support a rapidly growing population are long gone.
Echoing Fred Pearce in his The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet’s Surprising Future, Longman argues without reservation that dangerous population growth is a thing of the past, and instead, the world faces a “population bomb…of old people.” He even goes so far as to claim that “having too many people on the planet is no longer demographers’ chief worry; now, having too few is.”
I have to ask: what demographers did he talk to? Articles published over the last year in the field’s top journals — Demography, Population and Development Review, and Population Studies — certainly explore low fertility, but they also cover a range of youth- and growth-related issues and topics such as mortality, teen parenthood, and immigration. And within the field of political demography in particular there is still quite a lot of attention being paid to the implications of population growth and youth bulges on civil conflict and human security. Even Foreign Policy, in which Longman’s article appears, publishes an annual Failed States Index that argues there is an important relationship between demographic pressure and state collapse.
As studies like the Failed States Index and the National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends project show, contrary to Pearce et al., carrying capacity arguments are not completely outmoded. Regardless of how extreme the impact of an aging population will be on developed nations in the near future (although the United States will almost certainly be less affected than others), in many parts of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, population growth is straining local water and land resources and creating instability — issues that will likely be exacerbated by climate change.
Geographic Bias
If there really is more attention being paid among demographers to low fertility it may well be due to institutional and geographic bias. After all, most of the funding for demography comes from Western nations concerned with their own decline. Likewise, all the top journals are American or European.
Though it is correct that most advanced industrial states are aging because of low fertility, for a large part of the world, population growth is still the number one issue. Declining fertility in most countries of the world means that populations are getting older, but this is not the same as saying they have a problem with aging. Between 1980 and 2010, the median age of the less developed countries, excluding China, rose from 19 to almost 25 and the world’s least developed countries saw a rise from 17 to 20 years. Median age in more developed countries, however, went from 32 to 40 — a level twice that of the least developed countries.
Many of the low-fertility countries Longman cites — Iran and Cuba, in particular — are exceptions among developing countries, rather than the rule. The UN Population Division estimates that sub-Saharan Africa will gain 966 million people by 2050 – more than the current population of all of Europe – and, as Richard Cincotta and I have both argued on this blog previously, the total fertility rate (TFR) projections used in those estimations are likely low. Rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa has already exacerbated many countries’ abilities to meet the growing needs of their populations, causing civil conflict and instability, and will continue to do so in the future.
Why is it Important to Get it Right?
Alarmism is useful when it grabs the attention of policymakers and a public that is overloaded with information, but it is also risky. Both Pearce and Longman take jabs at Paul Ehrlich because his “population bomb” never exploded. What they fail to note is that Ehrlich’s predictions could have proven right, except that he was successful at scaring a generation of policymakers into action. Funding towards population programs increased greatly in the wake of such research. If those of us who write about the dangers of aging are successful, perhaps we will be so lucky to look as foolish as Ehrlich one day.
If these warnings fall on deaf ears and policymakers do not act to reduce the burden of entitlements, certainly budgets will be strained beyond capacity and the dire future predicted by Fishman, Pearce, and Longman may well become a reality. On the other hand, if policymakers similarly disregard carrying capacity issues in the developing world, conflict and misery are sure to continue in these places and may well worsen.
Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba is the Mellon Environmental Fellow in the Department of International Studies at Rhodes College. She is also the author of a forthcoming book, The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security. Follow her on Twitter at @profsciubba for more on population-related issues.
Sources: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, NPR, National Intelligence Council, The New York Times, Population Reference Bureau, Reuters, UN.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Protest/Manifestation,” courtesy of flickr user lilicomanche. -
Christian Leuprecht on Demography, Conflict, and Sub-National Security
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“Demographics are going to be to the 21st century what class cleavages were to the 19th century,” said Christian Leuprecht in this conversation with the Environmental Change and Security Program. Leuprecht is an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and was one of the authors featured in ECSP Report 13.
“Specifically with regards to demography and security, the challenge that I see is at the sub-national level. That is to say that most of the conflict, if you look around the world – the intractable conflicts, the violent conflicts, the conflicts that have been dragging on for decades – tend to be at the sub-national level,” he said. “Yet much of the academic work and the way data are gathered are at the national level.”
The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes. -
UNFPA State of World Population 2010
›Today marks the release of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) annual State of the World Population Report. But the 2010 edition, “From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change,” is unlike those that have come before. In lieu of the traditional statistic-driven report, this year’s edition has enlisted another tool to document living conditions across the world — storytelling. In addition to demographers, the UNFPA looked to journalists to fan out across the world to gather stories on the ground and paint a portrait of the challenges and opportunities facing today’s global population that goes beyond the numbers, with particular focus on gender issues and human insecurity.
For more on the UNFPA report, be sure to listen to The New Security Beat’s interview with one of its authors, Barbara Crossette, who talks about her experiences dealing with family planning around the world, as part of our ongoing Pop Audio series.
Video Credit: UNFPA. -
Brian O’Neill: Population is Neither a Silver Bullet nor a Red Herring in Climate Problem
›October 16, 2010 // By Meaghan Parker“Slower population growth would not solve the climate problem, but it could make a contribution. It is neither a silver bullet nor a red herring,” said Brian O’Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research at the annual Society of Environmental Journalists’ conference in Missoula, MT. On Friday, he presented the results of a new demographic study as part of a panel, “Population, Climate, and Consumption,” moderated by Ken Weiss of the Los Angeles Times.
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New Study Finds Lower Population Growth Could Cut Carbon Emissions
›A new study, “Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions,” finds that slowing population growth by 2050 would meet 16-29 percent of the reductions in carbon emissions necessary to avoid dangerous climate change — roughly equivalent to 1-1.5 “stabilization wedges.” Published in PNAS this week, the article reports the results of a comprehensive assessment, led by Brian O’Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), of the impact of demographic changes, including urbanization and aging, on global carbon emissions.
The authors conclude that policies designed to meet the substantial unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services, particularly in the United States and developing countries, would lead to emission reductions that amount to about one-half of a wedge. These results suggest that “family planning policies would have a substantial environmental cobenefit,” they write.
O’Neill will discuss the study’s results and recommendations on Friday morning at the annual Society of Environmental Journalists’ conference in Missoula, MT. The panel, “Population, Climate, and Consumption,” which I helped organize, will be moderated by Ken Weiss of the Los Angeles Times. Weiss wrote on the Times’ Greenspace blog that “the study offers a novel way to quantify how changes in human population influence the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
To tease out the complex connections between climate, population, and consumption, O’Neill and his coauthors looked beyond population size to delve into household location and composition. They found that urbanization and aging trends will have differential–and potentially offsetting–impacts on carbon emissions.
Aging, particularly in industrialized countries, will reduce carbon emissions by up to 20 percent in the long term. On the other hand, urbanization, particularly in developing countries could increase emissions by 25 percent.
The Taboo Against Mixing Condoms and Climate
Most coverage to date, including the widely distributed press release from the National Science Foundation, overlooked the study’s recommendations to increase access to family planning and meet unmet need for contraception as a climate mitigation strategy.
Unfortunately, that’s the case in many venues: “You don’t see policymakers talking about in the climate negotiations,” climate scientist Richard Somerville told Weiss. Family planning has long been off the table–Mother Jones recently called it “The Last Taboo” – especially at the big climate conferences. At Copenhagen, it was only discussed at side events; NYT’s Andrew Revkin called it the “missing ‘P’ word.“
One of this year’s panelists, Laurie Mazur, who last year published, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge, will likely explore the environmental cobenefits of improving women’s reproductive health. In addition to mitigation, some developing countries have identified family planning as a strategy in their national climate adaptation plans.
Growth Story: Population at SEJ
Friday’s panel is the only one to consider population’s role in environmental issues at this year’s SEJ conference, the premier event for U.S. environmental journalists. Given the issue’s historic marginalization within environmental community, that’s not necessarily surprising.
But there appears to be a growing interest among reporters: last year’s SEJ panel on population moderated by Tim Wheeler of The Baltimore Sun drew a standing-room-only crowd, following a popular 2008 SEJ panel on the topic moderated by Steve Curwood of Living on Earth.
More surprisingly, Friday’s panel is one of less than a handful at this year’s conference to address international environmental issues. I hope next year’s conference in Miami will draw on that city’s vibrant immigrant community and short flights to Latin America and the Caribbean to bring in more international flavor.
Sources: DotEarth, Greenspace, National Science Foundation, Population Action International, UNFPA. -
Population Reference Bureau Releases New Projections
Seven Billion and Counting
›August 6, 2010 // By Russell SticklorThe Population Reference Bureau recently released its annual World Population Data Sheet, and lo and behold, the world is getting more crowded. By next year, the global total is expected to top seven billion, as we march toward upwards of nine billion by mid-century.
Much of that growth, of course, will be unfolding across Asia — China and India already account for more than 35 percent of the world’s population, and the two countries will continue to drive global demographic change. But the PRB report emphasized that Africa will also contribute significantly to world’s shifting demographics in the coming decades. By 2050, the continent’s population is slated to double, reaching the neighborhood of two billion. In that time span, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia are expected to knock Russia and Japan off the list of the world’s top 10 most populous nations.
The Young Continent
Africa’s population growth through 2050 could actually be even greater than PRB predicts, since current projections assume that total fertility rate in sub-Saharan Africa will drop from 5.2 to 2.5 in that time span. The assumption is that as the region’s countries travel farther down the path to economic modernization, access to family planning services will become more widespread, resulting in smaller average family sizes—a trend well-documented in other parts of the developing world.
A slower than expected decrease in total fertility rate (TFR) across sub-Saharan Africa over the next 40 years could render current predictions inaccurate, however. While TFR has dropped significantly over the past 50 years in countries like Ghana (where it is now 4.0), just 17 percent of married women in sub-Saharan African utilize a modern type of family planning. That is one of the reasons Africa as a whole maintains a high average TFR of 4.7 children per woman, and why countries like Niger and Uganda sport some of the highest TFRs in the world (at 7.4 and 6.5, respectively).
According to the 2010 PRB Data Sheet, Africa is also notable for its demographic youth bulge. Of the world’s 10 countries with the highest percentage of their populations aged 15 or younger, nine of them—Niger, Uganda, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Zambia, Malawi, Chad, Somalia, and Tanzania—are on the continent. The question facing these countries is whether their young populations will yield a “demographic dividend” during the coming decades, whereby the large youth bulges translate into a sizeable and productive workforce. Harnessing the economic potential of the younger generation could help accelerate the development process in many of the region’s nations, but it will require significant investment in health and education infrastructure—funding that may prove hard to come by for many cash-strapped governments.
Persistent Divides
Other findings featured in the report involved sanitation and wastewater treatment, where some headway is being made at the global level. The PRB Data Sheet reveals that 43 percent of urban populations in sub-Saharan Africa (and 24 percent of the region’s rural populations) now have access to improved sanitation, while 86 percent of urban populations (and 55 percent of rural populations) have better sanitation services in Latin America and the Caribbean. The figures highlight progress, but reveal the significant divide that persists between urban and rural areas in terms of access to quality sanitation. According to the PRB, some 2.7 billion people—40 percent of the world’s total—still do not enjoy adequate sanitation facilities, and most live in rural areas of the developing world.
Finally, an interesting trend that will impact developed and developing nations alike involves elderly support ratios, or the number of active workforce members between the ages of 15 and 64 available to support a nation’s non-working, 65-and-older population. While rapidly growing countries in the developing world will continue to enjoy high elderly support ratios, a number of countries across the developed world will face a potential financial crisis, as comparatively low support ratios combine with rapidly aging populations to strain available financial resources earmarked for covering pension payments and healthcare infrastructure costs. To make up for the shortfall over the coming decades, the PRB report predicts that some developed nations may be inclined to further throw open the doors to immigration to bolster workforce ranks—a step recommended by Jack Goldstone in ECSP Report 13.
Sources: New York Times, Population Reference Bureau, Population Council, PR Newswire, United Nations Population Division, WHO/UNICEF Jointing Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation
Photo Credit: “Famine in Niger, Africa,” courtesy of flickr user liquidslave.
