It’s a Small World

Sometime around Halloween, the United Nations will celebrate the birth of the world's 7th billion baby. As U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders in New York last month, the 7th billion baby will most likely be poor and will inhabit an earth buffeted by the ravages of global warming, desertification, and dwindling food shortages.

Sounds swell. Given this kind of apocalyptic rhetoric, it's no surprise that much of the media's focus has been on the strain of an over-populated planet, one where more than 79 million people are added each year to the human family, overwhelming already overcrowded cities, fighting it out over a dwindling pool of natural resources.

But what if the world's population actually shrank?

While global population has tripled since the U.N.'s creation in 1945, global fertility rates over the past 100 years have steadily declined, from a high of 6 children per family at the dawn of the 20th century, to about 5 in 1950, to 2.5 today. The United Nations expects to reach a break-even replacement rate of about 2.1 children per family after 2100.

The United Nations has produced a range of scenarios showing population growing to nearly 10 billion over the next century -- or even as high as nearly 27 billion, if the current rate of population growth continues through the next century (needless to say, an outcome that many demographers see as unsustainable).

More likely, according to U.N. statisticians, is that population will gradually rise to 8 billion in 2025, 9 billion in 2043, hit 10.1 billion by century's end, and then stabilize. The so-called "medium variant" projection assumes that countries with high fertility rates like Niger, with a rate of 7.37 babies per woman, and those with low fertility rates, like South Korea, where women have an average of only 1.2 children, will ultimately converge.

That assumption, like most others, is pretty much a guess, and doesn't take into account potential cataclysmic events, like an asteroid hurtling into earth or perhaps a more plausible scenario in which mass numbers of people die by infectious diseases. The HIV/AIDS epidemic temporarily slowed the rates of population growth in Africa, preventing the African continent from surpassing the combined population of Europe and the Americas by 2025.

"Demography is not destiny. In some ways the most implausible assumption is the idea that the entire world is going to start having 2.1 children. There is no reason to believe that is going to happen," said Matthew Connelly, a history professor at Columbia University and author of Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population. "It wouldn't surprise me if we have more surprises ahead."

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ARVAY

6:01 AM ET

October 27, 2011

Malthus was right

That's the factor that determines our ability to survive as a species, or at least as anything more that savages in a postnuclear world.

PHILBEST

10:00 PM ET

October 28, 2011

HUH?

Malthus was right???? I suppose he MIGHT be "proved right" ONE DAY.

But he was preaching doom and gloom when the world reached a population of 1 billion. Also, he said what he did because he believed that population growth is exponential but food production growth is linear. That does not sound to me like he is someone who we can credit with being "right". I say he has been WRONG all the time up till now, and most likely still is going to be wrong in our lifetimes. Rachel Carson - WRONG. Paul Ehrlich - WRONG. Lester Brown - WRONG. But still celebrities, all these WRONG prophets of doom.

In contrast, knowledgeable experts like Colin Clark and Julian Simon have been proved RIGHT again and again in exactly the same time frames over which the doomsayers have been WRONG.

The famous econometrist Colin Clark devoted a chapter of his 1967 volume "Population Growth and Land Use", to the potential maximum population the earth could support, and concluded that it was somewhere between 47 billion and 80 billion - with the technology of the 1960's.

SPOOD

10:24 AM ET

Immigration supplements declining fertility rates

"Many of the world's richest countries, which have experienced declines in fertility rates, have prospered, while many of the world's poorest countries are struggling economically. "Take two of the most prosperous countries, Germany and Japan: they have a declining population and for the time being they are economic dynamos. There is no necessary link between prosperity and population growth." "

Except those countries supplement their demographic decline with immigration. Yes, even culturally xenophobic Japan is turning to "guest workers" mostly from South America and the Middle East for industrial labor.

US population figures and economy has always been buoyed by the constant flow of people into the country from those regions of the world where population growth is high.

Despite all the nativist brouhaha in the developed world concerning immigration, it is allowing them to maintain economic strength.

10:05 PM ET

It's too early to tell.

You are quite right, and the author of those comments is wrong, that demographic decline has turned out to be not as harmful as predicted. It is too early to tell - the demographic bulge that will swell the numbers of retirees has a long way to go yet until the number of retirees reaches its maximum and begins to decline.

Colin Clark was said by one biographer to have "supported Keynes before he became fashionable, and questioned Keynes when he was fashionable". Nevertheless, Colin Clark said he owed some of his early insights into the connection between demographics and economics, to Keynes' early work, "The End of Laissez-Faire". Keynes' pessimism expressed in this work, was founded on the effects of population declining or at least remaining static - it was not that he was antagonistic to the free market as such.

Keynes actually gave a speech to the Galton Institute (a eugenics advocacy body) which was somewhat condemnatory of their influence, because of the malign economic effects of population growth restraints.

Colin Clark made this a focus of his reasearch for some years. I will attempt to summarise the thesis he presented in "Population Growth and Land Use", a seminal, hefty tome published in 1967. The thesis is backed up by extensive historical evidence.

The development of free markets and the creation of wealth requires, along with a culture that encourages trust and co-operation; "connections" via transport and communication, between potential participants in exchange and trade. These connections can be the result of proximity (through density), as well as by roads and other transport infrastructure.

There is a limit to how much density is achievable as a substitute for transport infrastructure, because the production of low-density rural areas, especially food, has to be transported to the workers in urban industry. There is actually a correlation between the "density achieved" in urban areas throughout history, and the provision of roads.

Population growth is one way in which densities are increased, and "demand pressures" result in rural land being used more intensively and efficiently. Population growth disturbs a certain "status quo" that might have existed previously, where rural production levels were regarded as "satisfactory" to both the producers and the consumers of the produce.

As population densities increase, and rural production increases, a number of efficiencies are realised.

There is increased competition, and reduced oligopoly, monopoly, and monopsony exploitation.

Increased specialisation becomes possible, because of a viable number of customers for the products of the specialist. "External efficiencies" are realised by increasingly networked producers.

Economies are realised in infrastructure, social institutions, and government. Roads, bridges, harbours, etc, can be utilised by increasing numbers of people without capacity increases being immediately necessary. The same goes for churches and clergy, courts and lawyers, hospitals and doctors, other professionals, government bureaucracies, public buildings, educational and other institutions. This also allows for important advances in sanitation and health.

Labour productivity growth occurs, and less additional "capital" is required for each additional unit of output. The utilisation of land and resources previously underutilised, is a "substitute for capital".

Nevertheless, return on capital increases, AND capital formation is also increased. A rising population results in increasing returns to existing investment, encouraging more investment. Less investments "go bad", because there is a rising number of customers for whatever products or services the investor and his competitors provide. More production capital is utilised (and even worn out) before it becomes obsolete.

The products that result from new investments, inventions, and efficiencies, are easily absorbed in a rising population; as are the redundancies and relocations that might be necessary. Younger people, of which there are more, are more mobile and receptive to change. The increases in wealth creation and demand, make society more amenable to changes in employment patterns as the result of advancing technology and methods. There are more valuable "positions" to go around, so that change is less regarded as a threat by those occupying positions of advantage.

Younger people tend to accumulate capital, while older people tend to "draw down on it". Larger families result in pressure on the parents to save more, and on the children to provide for themselves because their inheritance will be split more ways.

(Note: Julian Simon added a further thesis to Colin Clark's: that a higher population includes both more inventive geniuses, and more people to purchase and enjoy the fruit of those creative geniuses).

A high proportion of government spending is inflexible to rises and falls in population. This spending is more efficient if population is higher. Much government spending is extremely difficult to reduce even when falling population justifies it.

If population is falling, there is much greater pressure on politicians to cheat by inflating the money supply, as the fewer numbers of young simply cannot sustain the taxation levels necessary to keep the government running, apart from the burdens of caring for larger numbers of elderly.

Younger people are rendered less able to save, capital is "drawn down on", returns on investment decline, more investments fail, investment declines.

Population increases demonstrated beneficial effects in Holland in the 1500's, Britain in the late 1700's, and Japan in the late 1800's. Holland and Japan were economic successes while importing most of their food. A LOWER percentage of the workforce in agriculture, correlates to wealth increases. These increases in population and in wealth, result in a freer, more mobile society.

Ancient Rome in its decadent phase, illustrates the effects of falling birthrates, including increased taxation burdens and monetary debasement.

Declining populations, in ancient Rome and in Europe in the 1400's, brought about a simultaneous shortage of workers, and yet lack of demand. Many people clung to their source of diminishing income, becoming protective and demanding restraint of competition; others had serfdom imposed upon them by the government, their freedom to relocate and change their livelihoods being removed. These seemingly contradictory effects are the result of a reversal of the "virtuous cycle" described earlier, that occurs when population is increasing.

France, from the revolution onwards, also illustrates economic decline consequent on falling birthrates.

In underpopulated lands, and where population is falling, the people themselves become more "protectionist" in sentiment, and more vulnerable to illusions regarding "planning" and regulation of production and prices. This only worsens the vicious circle of decline.

ANDIQU

10:25 AM ET

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GDE

11:31 AM ET

Overly simplistic

Looking at the world in terms of averages is way too simplistic. The problems are local as much or more than they are global. Overpopulation, relative to resources, leads to disaster at the local level. When war is the mechanism for resolving overpopulation, total resources are significantly reduced, amplifying the overall problem. Similarly, desperation agriculture also destroys resources (as does greedy agriculture).

It is unfortunate purported "experts" appear so clueless. For example, from the article:

' "We don't have a model of a country with declining population experiencing economic growth," says Joseph Chamie, the former director of the U.N. Population Division and currently research director at the Center for Migration Studies... '

What about the effect of the Black Death in greatly reducing the population to resource ratio in western Europe, leading to the ascendency of the West in economic power and world affairs? This concept is, at least, decades old, plenty of time to develop models.

10:12 PM ET

Not true

It is simply not true that the ascendancy of the West was because of population DECLINE as a result of the Black Death plague. The UN guy is right. The ascendancy of the West is due to a number of factors, but was certainly accompanied by population increase. The black death plague set progress back, it did not advance it. Economic historians like Fernand Braudel, Colin Clark, and Angus Maddison have concluded that Black Death exacerbated a recession in the European economy.

DIANA RELKE

2:27 PM ET

distribution of wealth

Nothing beats capitalism in the power of wealth creation, but it gets a big zero when it comes to distributing that wealth. If we had a fairer system of wealth distribution, then the retired generation would not be such a burden on the working generation.

10:20 PM ET

Never ending dilemma

This is a never ending dilemma. But "fairer distribution" would not of itself make a country better able to care for its elderly, because "fairer distribution" mostly seems to inhibit wealth creation.
But "culture" is probably even more important than "capitalism". This is why countries like Sweden and Norway can get away with more wealth redistribution without killing productivity - it is their Protestant ethics of work and responsibility. Also, they have evolved among the furthest in the world, away from low value commodity exporting and towards high value high tech industry, including armaments (in Sweden).
The Scandinavian countries and Japan are also very monocultural and have not had in their population, many people of other cultures that are less hardworking and enterprising.

MEDYAZOR

7:00 PM ET

November 18, 2011

Good post

You're quite right though a fair salary system in the world everyone would be rich kanal d oyunları

FIXFIX

6:23 AM ET

November 23, 2011

rich

Some of the very rich, some very poor distribution of wealth is not just necessary to find a solution 2 kişilik oyunlar en yeni oyunlar

FIRST ADVISOR

3:57 PM ET

The solution is simple.

This report describes yet another imaginary news media sensationalism 'problem', created out of thin air merely to sell advertising. The method of dealing with this condition is to test the global population for IQ, and then sterilize the bottom half, or 50 percent, by removing testicles and ovaries in those over 14. After 12 generations there would be no difficulty, and human society, with an average IQ of around 125, would be completely different from the civilization of morons we live in today. There is no mystery about this technique, it is used on virtually every livestock farm in the world every year, and has been for at least two millennia. Pretending that there is any doubt or question over the proper procedure for coping with the situation is dishonest and deceitful at best. The intelligent and practical method of managing reproduction is obvious and common knowledge.

DR. SARDONICUS

8:56 PM ET

The elderly as the Jews of the next corporate Final Solution

All this low worker/high retiree wolf crying is just an attempt (surprisingly successful) to trigger social warfare between panicked age cohorts, instead of allowing a popular front to rise up against elite abuse.

Nowadays, every worker (fewer and fewer of them, recruited from deeper and deeper in undeveloped countries, with almost the entire population of Africa beckoning in the years to come) does the work of tens, hundreds or thousands of 19th century equivalents, thanks to automation. Simply tax the machines to support the retirees.

Also, baby-boomers should retire early so as to free more paying jobs for the next generation. Seventy-year-old quick-mart attendants while two out of three twenty-somethings can’t find a job – what a corporate paradise!

Of course, corporations would rather institutionalize age-war than put a dent in their obscene profits. It’s so easy for them: get media mercenaries to repeat the same lie often enough for everyone to take it as gospel. Create a problem, then "solve" the promblem you've created. How pharmaceutical of you.

God knows what kind of fascist abuse this incessant propaganda will lead to in the future. And God forgive mindless corporate mouthpieces who parrot this garbage over and over, until the next charismatic psychopath the Republicans are panting for turns age-war into brutal political action, thanks to you.

ANON45

7:46 AM ET

Unbelievable.

There are 5 paragraphs, yet no single coherent thought.

post is summed up by, 'tax the machines to support the retirees' I think.

10:23 PM ET

Clark lecturing in 1977

Colin Clark: “Exploding Population Myths”
The Annual Monash Memorial Lecture, 1977
“The simple method of judging the trend of population by comparing current births with current deaths is open to an objection so obvious that many people fail to see it, namely, that while current births relate to the present generation of parental age, current deaths relate on the average to the much smaller generation born some seventy years ago. If current deaths are equal to current births, therefore, this must mean that population in the future is certain to decline. Now we are facing depopulation.
World power depends, even more than it did in the past, on having a large population, not primarily in having large numbers of recruits to the armed forces; but principally in having sufficient taxpayers to pay for the enormously costly equipment which modern armed forces require.
The cause of our infertility must be sought, it seems, in our social psychology, in a profound disillusion with the civilisation in which we live. People will undertake the undoubted hardships and difficulties of bringing up children if they have firmly fixed in the backs of their minds the belief that there is something good in the civilisation in which they live, that they live in a world worth bringing children into.
All previous civilisations have had a faith by which they lived. We have almost entirely lost ours, and are becoming totally disillusioned with our civilisation.
When I said at a public session of the ANZAAS 1976 Conference in Hobart that these declines in reproductivity, if not checked, would bring our civilisation to an end, a substantial part of the audience indicated by their applause that they thought that this was a desirable objective.
Another observation to be made of civilisations in decline is that they are becoming increasingly bureaucratic and overtaxed. Governments, even more than businesses, tend to have high overhead costs, i.e., those which show little or no alteration with the size of the population which they have to serve. A stationary or declining population thus increases the comparative burden of government expenditure. It also increases the temptation on governments, faced with difficulties in raising money by taxation or borrowing, to try to get out of them by inflation.
It is significant that France, which for a long period has had an almost stationary population, since the nineteenth century should have suffered more persistent devaluations than most Western countries.
It can only be some irrational force of social psychology at work which led such large numbers of supposedly rational people to accept with enthusiasm the obvious nonsense about the prospect of the immediate extinction of our industrial civilisation through the exhaustion of mineral and agricultural resources; while at the same time being overwhelmed by pollution. If such people really believed what they were saying, they would have bought agricultural land and mining shares, both of which would obviously be rising rapidly in value if the world really were on the point of exhausting its resources……”
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/clark_colin_population.html

KEVLAH

2:55 PM ET

November 2, 2011

Inevitable

It isn't too much of a surprise that the population growth curve is leveling off. Theres some models that suggest population levels decreasing at around 2050 and slipping back down to current levels by 2100. No species, even humanity, could realistically breed out of control to unsustainable levels. The environmental carrying capacity makes it more or less an impossibility. The risk to the planet (and future) during this current rapid rise is developing countries growing so quickly to meet demands in the economy and jobs as they consume/waste more resources.

PRELIOCIVEDE

2:51 PM ET

November 19, 2011

I believe that overpopulation

I believe that overpopulation is the gratest challenge our race has ever confronted. I also understand there is many? people that doesn`t quite believe in the technical info that is warning about this tremendous situation. One thing I can tell to those who don`t believe: Trust your own eyes and your memory code. I remember some places from when I was young. Places where we could install a tent for vacation with only nature around us. I remember that. And my eyes tell me they don`t exist any more.

DANIELAB

2:54 PM ET

There is no need to panic so

There is no need to panic so calm down! The world is not going to be over populated any time son. Global fertility? rates are actually at sub replacement levels. European governments are practically paying their people to have children. Populations of developed nations are actually expected to decrease. The reason why the population is growing (right now) is because bet365 people who exist now are having longer lives. The population is going to peak then steadily decline.

DOMINOES

10:58 AM ET

November 21, 2011

Have we hit 8 billion yet?

How many people can the planet hold? I wish all of these developing countries would stop plopping babies out like bread rolls. If they only knew the implications of it all, they might realize that another human being is not a good thing for the baby or for the planet. The amount of suffering is so high and another person on the planet will just add to the suffering. One thing that I use religiously to help with suffering is modern furniture austin, it helps me to relax and get in that special place a midst the chaos of the world.

SOFIA MIKKELSENDP

2:20 PM ET

November 22, 2011

thank you

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RUDDERMANN

5:23 PM ET

The World population is doomed to drop

Why?

1. A decrease in our nonrenewable power supplies: oil, gas, coal, and uranium. When oil was found in 1859, 1 billion individuals lived on the planet. By utilizing oil to develop food, the planet's food production skyrocketed. Saving money revolution was wholly determined by oil. As oil production elevated, food production elevated, which allowed population to boost to the present 7 billion.

A corollary states that future decreases of oil supplies will create decreased food production and therefore decreased population levels. Ultimately, we realistically can anticipate globe bigbootiespopulation to visit from ten to 11 billion down towards the carrying capacity of two or three billion.

Decreasing supplies of petrochemicals will also decrease the low-priced electric energy that people Americans demand. Because these nonrenewable power sources go out, only solar, wind, hydro and geothermal will stay, none of that are trustworthy substitutes for oil.

2. Yet another crucial element of the planet's carrying capacity is water, that is extra crucial alive than is food. By decreasing waste and pollution we're able to alleviate some future water shortages.

CORTES

8:59 AM ET

November 25, 2011

I like the way FP covered the

I like the way FP covered the event of the 7th billion person in the world objectively from all angles. Another site that I don't want to mention went to the extent of claiming the 7 billionth tot was going to come from Kenya. Yeah pretty hilarious I know!

MAVEE22

10:14 AM ET

We are 7 Billion!

I watch the news while having a workout in one of my treadmills with tv. The 7th billion baby is in the Phils. It made me think, our world is becoming smaller. I do hope we can sustain life despite our growing number.

CRUNCHBERRY21

9:10 PM ET

Dont agree with The HIV/AIDS epidemic

There isn't any mystery relating to this technique, it's utilized on just about any livestock farm on the planet each year, and it has been not less than two millennial. Pretending that there's question or question within the properbuild muscleprocess of dealing with everything is dishonest and deceitful at best. The intelligent and practical approach to managing reproduction is apparent and well known.

HB209

2:29 PM ET

November 26, 2011

I don't think the population

I don't think the population will decrease. I think thats not possible. It will only increase. Of course that is my opinion but unless major continuous naural disasters happen or prolonged war breaks out in diverse places its not going to happen. pajama jeans reviews sylvania 7 netbook

MICHEAL TOEM

2:37 PM ET

Sad but true

It is sad but without drastic changes the next couple of generations could live a completly differnet life than most of us have experienced. With over population, the could start having to take more dratic measures to obtain the scarce resources to survive. Hopefully, that doesn't happen. ,a href="http://thebestwebfiles.com">affiliate marketing
Mike

2:39 PM ET

Foreign Policy Magazine

Inside National Security

The United Nations is celebrating a planet with seven billion people. But some projections now warn that the global population may actually start shrinking.

BY COLUM LYNCH | OCTOBER 26, 2011

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