UN forecasts end of global population explosion
Declining fertility rates everywhere suggest figure could stabilise within decades
In India, fertility rates are down to 2.48 children per woman. Photograph: Reuters/Danish Ismail
For the past 200 years the global
population has risen explosively. There were 1 billion humans in 1850.
There are 7.3 billion today. Ever since the Industrial Revolution,
humanity has lived in quiet dread that somewhere there is a limit, and
the Malthusian horsemen of plague, starvation and war will one day
punish our effrontery.
Demographic change is easy to miss, because it
happens slowly, but we stand on the cusp of a profound change in the
human condition. New projections from the UN suggest that, in a few
decades, we could secure a stable global population.
To be clear, the forecasts do not show an imminent
end to population growth – far from it. The global population has the
momentum of an elephant on an ice rink. The UN’s medium-variant
projection shows a rise to 9.7 billion people in 2050 and 11.2 billion
by 2100.
But recent data and short-term forecasts also show a
dramatic slide in fertility rates. People everywhere are having fewer
babies. If the trend continues then, in decades, the global population
will flatten out. The UN says there is a 23 per cent chance of that
happening by 2100.
The plunge in childbearing is startling. Eighty-three
countries containing 46 per cent of the world’s population – including
every single country in Europe
– now have fertility below replacement rate of about 2.1 births per
woman. Another 46 per cent live in countries where the birth rate has
fallen sharply. In 48 countries the population will decline between now
and 2050.
That leaves just 9 per cent of the world’s population, almost all in Africa,
living in nations with pre-industrial fertility rates of five or six
children per woman. But even in Africa fertility is starting to dip. In a
decade, the UN reckons, there will be just three countries with a
fertility rate higher than five: Mali, Niger and Somalia; of these, only Niger will be higher than four.
These projections include a fertility bounce in countries such as Germany and Japan. If more fecund nations follow this path of declining birth rates, a stable population could quickly be locked in.
That would have enormous consequences for the world
economy, geopolitics and the sum of human happiness, illustrated by some
of the middle-income countries that have gone through a dramatic, and
often ignored, fall in fertility.
Consider Iran,
for example, where the stereotype of a theocratic state full of
families with six children is one reason for the atavistic security
fears the country raises. Except it is not true. Birth control campaigns
in the 1980s and 1990s led to a plunge in fertility; at 1.75, it has
run below replacement rate for more than a decade.
Security implications
Fear of neighbours with much higher fertility is one obvious reason to want a nuclear weapon. Another security consequence, in Iran and elsewhere, will be less of a population bulge of alienated young men easily stirred to trouble.
Or consider Mexico.
Donald Trump, US Republican presidential candidate, rants about Mexico
using the US as a “dumping ground” for violent migrants, but America’s
southern neighbour no longer has many young people to export. In the
past 40 years, its fertility rate has gone from above six to 2.27, a
little over replacement level. There will still be many people eager to
migrate to a better life, but they will increasingly come from one
place: Africa.
Then there is India,
one of the world’s most populous countries, and a primary source of
global population growth. Fertility rates are now down to 2.48 children
per woman, and the UN projects they will reach replacement level by
2025-30. A similar transition is under way in other big emerging
economies, from Indonesia to Bangladesh.
For business, that will mean a huge demographic
dividend, as working age populations with spare cash swell in these
countries. But it also means the seemingly inexhaustible pool of cheap
global labour actually has an end in sight. Countries with falling
populations will soon be common. Companies will have to learn to
navigate these declining markets.
Finally, the end of population growth almost
everywhere else will make Africa a hugely tempting market and
manufacturing centre. More than that, lower fertility opens the prospect
of tackling extreme poverty, with the chance of an accelerator effect
as falling fertility elsewhere frees up resources to help the poorest.
There are several ways this scenario could be wrong.
The UN says that bringing about its projected fall in fertility will
require investment in reproductive health and family planning in the
poorest countries. It would be a tragedy if this investment were not
made, given the gains in human happiness likely to result.
Another possibility is that governments resist their
citizens’ desire to have few children, whether out of national
aggrandisement, fear for the future tax base, dislike of modernity or
security fears about more populous neighbours. In rich countries, where
fertility is below replacement, this baby boosting is harmless enough.
Keeping poor countries on a path of rapid population growth is less
benign.
Falling fertility is sometimes seen as evidence of
decline – a sign our most dynamic days are past. Perhaps so. But it
opens the prospect of a new stage in human existence, one with greater
control of our own destiny. The goal should be simple: to let every
human on this planet choose how many children they can love and care
for. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015)
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