Showing posts from category demography.
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How Did We Arrive at 7 Billion – and Where Do We Go From Here? [Part Two]
›October 26, 2011 // By Elizabeth Leahy MadsenThe world’s women will determine whether the global population in 2050 is as low as 8 billion or as high as 11 billion through their choices (or lack thereof) about the number and timing of their children. Women in developing regions of the world will have the greatest effect on these potential population trajectories. Even if fertility rates remain constant at current levels (which is unlikely), developing regions would grow from 5.7 billion in 2010 to 9.7 billion in 2050, but the total population of developed countries would remain essentially unchanged.
The UN estimates that the seven billionth person alive today will be born on October 31. Demographer Elizabeth Leahy Madsen explains how we got to that number, its significance, and where our demographic path might take us from here. Read part one here.
The world’s women will determine whether the global population in 2050 is as low as 8 billion or as high as 11 billion through their choices (or lack thereof) about the number and timing of their children. Women in developing regions of the world will have the greatest effect on these potential population trajectories. Even if fertility rates remain constant at current levels (which is unlikely), developing regions would grow from 5.7 billion in 2010 to 9.7 billion in 2050, but the total population of developed countries would remain essentially unchanged.
The way that people decide the timing and number of their children is not easily distilled into a simple formula with a single solution. Still, some basic and important facts are known. In the developing world, where more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives, women in rural areas, those who have little or no education, and those who are poor, have larger families. As demographers have shown in modeling the determinants of fertility, women tend to seek contraception once they are confident that their children will survive to adulthood and when socioeconomic development increases the “costs” of having children, for example by motivating parents to send them to school rather than to work.
One of the most direct reasons for past declines in fertility rates was the rapid expansion of family planning and reproductive health programs, supported by country governments and international donors, that enabled women and men to more effectively choose the size of their families. But today, about 215 million women across the developing world would like to delay or avoid pregnancy but are using ineffective contraception or none at all. Funding programs to meet the family planning needs of these women, which would cost about $3.6 billion annually, would both empower them and help fertility rates continue to decline.
Beyond Access: Gender Inequality Inhibits Contraceptive Use
While increasing support for family planning programs tops the list of demographers’ recommended policies, ensuring that contraceptives are available and accessible will not alone achieve the fertility declines projected in most of the UN’s range of possibilities. Many women who are having or planning to have large families know about family planning and where to find it, but are choosing not to use contraception for cultural reasons that are often deeply engrained.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest global fertility rate, only 16 percent of married/partnered women of reproductive age are using effective contraception. In comparison, between 62 and 75 percent of their peers in Ireland, the United States, and Uruguay – countries whose fertility rates are almost exactly at replacement level – are using it.
Logically, sub-Saharan Africa needs similar levels of contraceptive use to bring its average fertility rate towards replacement level as the UN projects, so the region’s average prevalence rate for modern contraception would need to rise by at least 10 percentage points in each of the next four decades. However, contraceptive use in the region has grown by only 0.5 percentage points or less over the past 30 years.
What is inhibiting the use of contraception? Demographic and health surveys find in Nigeria, for example, that 10 percent of married women are using an effective contraceptive method, while twice as many have an unmet need for family planning. This low use of family planning demonstrates high potential for change in the country’s demographic future, which, as the most populous in Africa, will greatly influence global and regional trends. Yet among women who do not intend to use contraception, 39 percent report that they or their family members are opposed to family planning, and another 16 percent fear side effects or have other health-related concerns. If Nigeria’s fertility rate remains unchanged, the country will be home to 500 million people by 2050.
In Pakistan, where 24 percent of births are unintended, surveys show similar barriers. Ninety-six percent of married women know about effective contraceptive methods, but only 22 percent are using one. More than one-quarter of women who do not plan to use contraceptives report that their fertility is “up to God” and 23 percent report that they or their family members are opposed to family planning. Pakistan’s population would more than double from 174 million to 379 million by 2050 if current fertility trends hold constant.
Peak Planet? Population Growth and Consumption Strain Environmental Resources
Because Nigeria, Pakistan, and other countries’ demographic trajectories may not follow the path laid out in population projections, we can’t take a world of nine billion for granted. While human ingenuity and technological advancements have improved standards of living in many countries, scientists caution that the combination of rising human numbers and growing consumption has serious environmental implications. Already, the quantity and quality of fresh water supplies are under strain, and forests in many developing countries are being rapidly depleted.
Population projections are much more than wonkish speculation – they foreshadow the serious problems that lie ahead if health, environment, and development policies aren’t strengthened. If the UN projections of our demographic future are to bear any semblance of reality, we must move beyond the status quo. While improving physical access to family planning should remain a top priority, meeting unmet need will also require addressing the deep-seated challenges of women’s education and empowerment.
Elizabeth Leahy Madsen is a consultant on political demography for the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and former senior research associate at Population Action International.
Sources: Bongaarts and Sinding (2009), Bongaarts (2006), Futures Institute, Guttmacher Institute and UN Population Fund, Measure DHS, O’Neill, Dalton, Fuchs, Jiang, Shonali Pachauri, and Katarina Zigova (2010), UN Population Division, Washington Post.
Photo Credit: “Afghan Internally Displaced Persons,” courtesy of flickr user United Nations Photo. -
How Did We Arrive at 7 Billion – and Where Do We Go From Here? [Part One]
›October 26, 2011 // By Elizabeth Leahy MadsenThe United Nations Population Division has estimated world population will reach seven billion on Monday. Which changes in demographic trends led us to this milestone? What do the past and present tell us about how human numbers will change in the future?
The “Day of Seven Billion” was announced this spring following the release of the latest revision of UN population projections. Although the seven billionth person will not be precisely identified, this estimate is based on careful demographic modeling. Every two years, the UN revises its projections to incorporate the latest trend data and modify its assumptions, as seemingly small changes can make a huge difference demographically.The UN estimates that the seven billionth person alive today will be born on October 31. Demographer Elizabeth Leahy Madsen explains how we got to that number, its significance, and where our demographic path might take us from here. Read part two here.
The United Nations Population Division has estimated world population will reach seven billion on Monday. Which changes in demographic trends led us to this milestone? What do the past and present tell us about how human numbers will change in the future?
The “Day of Seven Billion” was announced this spring following the release of the latest revision of UN population projections. Although the seven billionth person will not be precisely identified, this estimate is based on careful demographic modeling. Every two years, the UN revises its projections to incorporate the latest trend data and modify its assumptions, as seemingly small changes can make a huge difference demographically.
Demography Is Driven by Fertility and Population Momentum
Since world population reached three billion in 1959, the rate of growth has increased, peaked, and begun to slow. Each succeeding milestone was reached more quickly than the last: It took 15 years to reach four billion, 13 years to hit five billion, and only 11 years to get to six billion at the end of 1998. The interval leading to seven billion was slightly longer, at 13 years, as the global rate of population growth has slowed.
Although mortality and migration also affect population trends, the factor with the greatest influence by far is fertility – the average number of children born to each woman. The decline in the global fertility rate from an average of nearly 5 children per woman in the early 1960s to 2.5 children today has in turn slowed the pace of world population growth. However, demographic momentum from previous generations of high fertility can drive population growth for decades to come. Even if Nigeria reached replacement-level fertility today, its population would still grow by one-third by 2050 as the number of births continued to exceed the number of deaths.
Assumptions Matter
Population projections consider: 1) current data about fertility and 2) assumptions about the ways fertility will change in the future. These assumptions vary depending on the source, so how much of a difference do they make? As it turns out, quite a lot.
Projections of world population in 2050 range from 8.1 billion (if fertility rates fall to a global average of 1.7 children per woman) to 10.9 billion (if they remain unchanged). The gap of nearly three billion between those possibilities is greater than the combined populations of China and India today.
Estimates vary even more widely for the end of the century, with the UN projecting that by 2100 world population could total anywhere between 6 billion (if total fertility falls to an average of 1.55 children per woman) and 27 billion (if every country’s fertility rates remain constant at today’s levels).
While demographers parse the details of the projections, policymakers would like to know which of these scenarios is more likely. After all, the economic, environmental, and political consequences of a population of 8 or 11 billion two generations hence are not the same, and a world of 27 billion is difficult for anyone to fathom.
If we simply projected past trends into the future at a steady rate, the population estimates on the low end of the fertility spectrum seem more likely. The global fertility rate has fallen from 4.5 children per woman in the early 1970s to 2.5 today, a decline of 43 percent, so the 14 percent decline projected in the medium-fertility variant between now and 2050 seems reasonable at first glance, perhaps even conservative. The medium-fertility variant assumes that all countries’ fertility rates will begin moving towards replacement level, around 2.1 children per woman, regardless of whether they are currently above or below that number.
However, even a 14 percent decline in fertility assumes that areas where fertility rates remain stalled at high levels will soon begin rapid declines, paralleling the past experience of other regions. As Population Reference Bureau demographer Carl Haub writes, “the assumption that the developing world will necessarily follow the path of the industrialized world…is far from a sure bet.”
In the last 40 years, fertility rates in the Caribbean, northern and southern Africa, Latin America, and all of Asia declined by 50 percent or more. The pace of decline in sub-Saharan Africa, while still notable, was much slower, at 23 percent. In order to meet the UN medium-variant projections, the region’s fertility rate would need to fall by nearly 40 percent by mid-century.
Some of the largest, fastest-growing populations in the developing world would need to experience a major acceleration from recent trends. In Nigeria, fertility edged down by 15 percent between 1970 and 2010, but the medium variant projection depends on a decline of 37 percent over the next four decades; Ethiopia’s fertility rate will need to fall by half.
Gender Matters, Too
The great irony of fertility trends is that gender inequities play an important role at both ends of the scale. In countries with the highest fertility rates, women tend to have less education than men and less autonomy. Their fertility choices may be greatly affected by the preferences of their husbands or other family members. In Niger, which has the highest fertility rate in the world, married men would, on average, like three more children than married women. In Uganda, where women average more than six children each, 60 percent of men report that domestic violence is justified.
By contrast, in countries with the lowest fertility rates, women have achieved equal access to education and the labor market, with more autonomy about how to earn income and what to do with it. Yet cultural expectations that place the burden for child and elder care and housework almost entirely on women can make marriage an unappealing option. In Japan, which is among the 10 lowest fertility countries in the world, more women are choosing to stay single: The marriage rate has fallen by almost half since the 1970s. Japanese women who do marry are waiting until their late 20s and tend not to give birth until they are 30, both of which result in lower average family size.
Even at this end of the demographic spectrum, the assumptions embedded within population projections seem optimistic. Japan’s fertility rate was last above replacement level in the early 1970s; it has fallen steadily to 1.3 children per woman today. The UN projections assume that fertility will immediately reverse track and begin rising to over 1.8 children per woman in 2050, rebounding above two children per woman before the end of the century.
The stalled high fertility rates in much of sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East, together with unprecedented low fertility in Eastern Europe and parts of East Asia, indicate that we are currently in an era of remarkable demographic diversity, despite the UN’s projection of future convergence.
Continue reading part two here.
Elizabeth Leahy Madsen is a consultant on political demography for the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and former senior research associate at Population Action International.
Sources: Boling (2008), Haub (2011), Japan Statistics Bureau, Measure DHS, UN Population Division, UN Population Fund, Washington Post.
Image Credit: Chart data from UN Population Division, arranged by Elizabeth Leahy Madsen. -
Carl Haub, Behind the Numbers
Rwanda’s 2010 Demographic and Health Survey Shows Remarkable Drop in Fertility and Child Mortality
›October 18, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Carl Haub, appeared on PRB’s Behind the Numbers blog.
The Rwanda 2010 Demographic Health Survey is the latest in a regular series of DHS surveys that began in 1992, although hostilities had delayed the next survey until 2000. The 2010 survey interviewed 13,671 women ages 15 to 49 and 6,329 men ages 15 to 59 from September 2010 to March 2011. The total fertility rate (TFR – the average number of children would bear in her lifetime if the birth rate of a particular year were to remain constant) obtained in the survey was 4.6 for the three-year period preceding the survey. For urban women, the TFR was 3.4 and for rural women, who were 85 percent of the sample, 4.8.
Rwanda’s TFR saw its fastest decline in the 2010 DHS. From the 2007-08 Interim DHS to the 2010 survey, the TFR fell by 1.1 children nationwide – by 1.3 in urban areas and 0.9 in rural areas in a period of only four and a half years. This is sharpest drop in a sub-Saharan TFR I can ever remember seeing. As an indicator of future fertility plans, 56.2 percent of women with three living children said that they not wish to have any more children as did 76 percent of those with four living children. It is clear that the large family size of eight children per woman is truly a thing of the past.
In the survey, 51.5 percent of currently married women said that they were using some form of family planning, 45.1 percent a modern method. Injectables were by far the most frequently used, as such “spacing” methods are in much of Africa, with 23.1 percent of women saying that they used them. That method increased from 15.2 percent in the 2007-08 survey. The next two methods were implants (6.3 percent) and the pill (7.1 percent).
Continue reading on Behind the Numbers.
Image Credit: Arranged by Population Reference Bureau; data from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Ministry of Health Rwanda, MEASURE DHS, ICF Macro, Demographic and Health Survey 2010, Preliminary Report. -
Minority Youth Bulges and the Future of Intrastate Conflict
›October 13, 2011 // By Richard Cincotta
From a demographic perspective, the global distribution of intrastate conflicts is not what it used to be. During the latter half of the 20th century, the states with the most youthful populations (median age of 25.0 years or less) were consistently the most at risk of being engaged in civil or ethnoreligious conflict (circumstances where either ethnic or religious factors, or both, come into play). However, this tight relationship has loosened over the past decade, with the propensity of conflict rising significantly for countries with intermediate age structures (median age 25.1 to 35.0 years) and actually dipping for those with youthful age structures (see Figure 1 below).
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Carl Haub, Behind the Numbers
Ethiopia’s 2011 Demographic and Health Survey: Remarkable Fertility Decline, Continued Rural Health Challenges
›September 28, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Carl Haub, appeared on the Population Reference Bureau’s Behind the Numbers blog.
Continuing my recent practice of posting a quick summary of results from new demographic surveys in developing countries, here is another new Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) preliminary report, this time from a sub-Saharan African country. This will help readers of this blog to stay right up-to-date with the latest developments.
The Ethiopia 2011 DHS interviewed 16,515 women ages 15 to 49 and 14,110 men ages 15 to 59 from September 2010 to June 2011. The total fertility rate (TFR – the average number of children would bear in her lifetime if the birth rate of a particular year were to remain constant) obtained in the survey was 4.8 for the three-year period preceding the survey. For urban women, the TFR was 2.6 and for rural women, who were a little over 75 percent of the sample, 5.5. There appears to have been an acceleration of TFR decline from the 2005 to the 2011 survey compared with the 2000 DHS, which had a three-year TFR of 5.5. In 1990, a government survey had shown the TFR as 6.4. The desire to continue or cease childbearing provides one insight into possible future fertility trends. Of the women with five living children, 55.8 percent said that they did not wish to have any more children; among women with six or more living children, 68.6 percent said that they also wished to ceased childbearing.
Continue reading on Behind the Numbers.
Image Credit: Population Reference Bureau; data courtesy of Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) and ICF Macro, Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2011, Preliminary Report. -
Carl Haub, Yale Environment 360
What If Experts Are Wrong On World Population Growth?
›September 22, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Carl Haub, appeared on Yale Environment 360.
In a mere half-century, the number of people on the planet has soared from 3 billion to 7 billion, placing us squarely in the midst of the most rapid expansion of world population in our 50,000-year history – and placing ever-growing pressure on the Earth and its resources.
But that is the past. What of the future? Leading demographers, including those at the United Nations and the U.S. Census Bureau, are projecting that world population will peak at 9.5 billion to 10 billion later this century and then gradually decline as poorer countries develop. But what if those projections are too optimistic? What if population continues to soar, as it has in recent decades, and the world becomes home to 12 billion or even 16 billion people by 2100, as a high-end UN estimate has projected? Such an outcome would clearly have enormous social and environmental implications, including placing enormous stress on the world’s food and water resources, spurring further loss of wild lands and biodiversity, and hastening the degradation of the natural systems that support life on Earth.
It is customary in the popular media and in many journal articles to cite a projected population figure as if it were a given, a figure so certain that it could virtually be used for long-range planning purposes. But we must carefully examine the assumptions behind such projections. And forecasts that population is going to level off or decline this century have been based on the assumption that the developing world will necessarily follow the path of the industrialized world. That is far from a sure bet.
Continue reading on Yale Environment 360.
Image Credit: Data from UN Population Division, chart arranged by Schuyler Null. -
Babatunde Osotimehin Answers Seven Questions on Population
›PSI’s Impact magazine has an interview up with UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin asking him seven questions about population. It’s not likely this will be the last seven-something-themed story as we approach October and the expected seven billion mark for global population, but Karl Hofmann, president and CEO of PSI, asks some good questions, including on the prospect of harnessing the “demographic dividend” and about the barriers facing more integrated development efforts – a critical topic in population, health, and environment (PHE) circles.
On the demographic dividend:Karl Hofmann: Demography can be a key to progress with the right policy environment in place, but it can also be a burden when we don’t have the right framework in place to take advantage of growing populations. Some have described this as the demographic dividend – growing populations as a potent driver of economic growth and development. Give us your perspective on that.
And on integrated development:
Babatunde Osotimehin: I spoke at the 17th African Union Summit this year and one of my messages was that we have the opportunity right now to take advantage of the demographic dividend of young people. It’s important for African governments to understand that they have a youthful population. Most of Africa is under the age of 35. If 85 percent of the African population is under 35, the implication is that you have to have education, social services, housing, all of that, tailored to meet the needs of this population.
Beyond that, given what we’ve seen with the Arab spring uprising and others in many parts of the developing world, young people who are out of work want education and economic opportunities. We want to appeal to member states to provide skills appropriate to development and also ensure that we have continuing conversations with young people about their reproductive health and rights so they can make the choices that will ensure they plan for their families.KH: There are lots of conversations going on in global health circles these days around the synergy of integration. From your perspective, what are the barriers to this integration?
Read the full interview on Impact.
BO: I think it’s bipolar. Some countries are satisfied with vertical programs. Others are resistant to changing their system at the request of a donor. One argument for integration is that you can have the one-stop shop situation where one, two, three trained providers can deliver services at the same time. These include integration of HIV counseling, testing and treatment with family planning, with health education for non-communicable diseases, with immunization for children or with maternity services.
When you look at the components of an integrated system, it is very easy to sell. In terms of investment, it makes sense for the governments to build and put this together. The supervision becomes a lot easier, and the training of health workers would then capture all of the skill sets that would be required. Some countries, like India, Ethiopia and Nigeria have started this kind of integration.
Sources: PSI.
Image Credit: Adapted from UNFPA. -
Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Family Planning Can Help in Afghanistan
›September 6, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this op-ed, by Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Most experts agree that the mark of long-term success in Afghanistan will be stable governance that allows the economy, democracy, and the people to flourish. Many factors will determine that, but a major one that seems to be left out of most high-level conversations is population.
Afghanistan is a country of 31 million people, but that number will double by 2035, according to the most recent UN projections, and could reach 126 million by midcentury. That’s 95 million more Afghans to govern, clothe, feed, and employ.
Without attention to population, countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan stand a good chance of staying mired in poverty, conflict, and corrupt, repressive government. That is why sustained investment in family planning by the United States and other countries would do more to stabilize the political climate there than any other foreign policy initiative. Though efforts by the Afghan government to provide contraceptives have met some resistance by conservative Muslim groups, the success of family planning in other Muslim states demonstrates that it can be effective.
Continue reading on The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Sources: UN Population Division.
Photo Credit: “100430-F-2616H-050,” courtesy of flickr user Kenny Holston 21 (Kenny Holston).
