STABILIZING WORLD POPULATION
“In a world brought up on the idea of a ‘population explosion’
this is a radical notion… the next crisis is depopulation.”
—Ben J. Wittenberg
Current Problem
74 million people are added to world’s population year.
Preferred State/What the World Wants
A stable world population
Context
The world's human population has more than doubled since 1960—from
3 billion to over 6 billion. High rates of population growth can
exacerbate almost all of the problems of developed and developing
nations by overburdening systems designed to meet the needs of much
smaller populations.
The old litany was that the world was going to over populate itself
to death. Well intentioned people projected current population growth
rates and assumed they would continue until human beings reproduced
themselves to absurd levels and covered the world with human protoplasm—dying
of course considerably before this end from starvation, poverty, war
and/or pollution. Besides showing a lack of respect for collective
and individual human intelligence, these “population bomb” theories
are a good example of the misleading and even dangerous results that
can come from simplistic trend extrapolation in a world where everything
is interconnected. They also illustrate the dangers that befall the
extrapolator who has an agenda that he or she wants the “facts” to
fit into. The future is often a Rorschach inkblot test that we fill
in with our own fears or hopes. So-called population “experts” are
no exception.
The latest report from UN demographers has not only lowered these
early doom saying projections—the world will not have a human population
of 16 billion, or 12 billion, or even 10 billion—it has blown them
out of the water. Current reckoning by professional demographers
is that we may not even reach 9 billion —world population will reach
8.9 to 9.1 billion around 2050 and then slowly decline.[1] Population
growth in 2002 was 1.18%, the lowest on record.[2]
In the 1960s, developing countries had an average fertility rate of
6 children per woman. In 2003 this rate had plummeted to 2.9, and
it is still going down. Developed countries have seen their fertility
rate go down to levels that will result in their populations decreasing.
Every developed country is now below the level needed to maintain
their current population, unless they admit immigrants to their country
(as does the U.S). A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to keep a country’s
population stable. Europe’s rate is 1.4; Japan’s is 1.3. The implication
of this is that Europe is expected to lose 100 million people in the
next 50 years.[3]
8.9 to 9.1 billion people are still 2.4 to 2.6 billion more than the
world had in 2007.[4] It is no insignificant increase, and will pose
a considerable challenge for humanity to meet the needs of this size
population. Nevertheless, it is a long way from 10 to 16 billion
people. In addition, the notion that population might or will decline
has serious implications. For example, the present and future decline
in population in every developed country that does not admit immigrants,
and the consequences to a country’s economy of a shrinking population,
makes it important to “increase the orderly, legal migration of labor
from poorer to richer countries in the next few decades… those who
oppose this trend will be embracing long-term economic suicide.”[5]
Most of the growth in the world’s population— over 90% of it—is projected
to occur in the world’s poorest regions, whose fragile infrastructures
and ecosystems are already overburdened.[6] Although world population
is projected to level off within fifty years, there are a number of
things that can be done to accelerate this trend.
“Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and
a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental
prerequisite for equality, development and peace.”
—Fourth World Conference on Women
Stabilizing World Population Strategy 1: Empowering Women
Much of the progress of the lowering of birth rates around the world
is due to the increase availability of family planning. In the 1960s
less than 10% of married women had access to family planning. By
2003, this had risen to about 60%.[7] Surveys in developing countries
indicate that most women of childbearing age would like to increase
the spacing between their pregnancies or stop having children altogether.
There are 300 million couples in the developing world who do not want
any more children but who are not using any effective means of limiting
family size.[8] If women who do not want to become pregnant are empowered
to exercise that choice, population growth rates in the developing
world fall by about 30%.[9] By making family planning services universally
available, providing financial incentives to allow women to realize
their goal of a smaller family, and improving prenatal and infant
health care and the education of women, the world’s population can
be stabilized even quicker than current trends indicate. This information
and services would be provided through the health care system outlined
in Health Care for All.
“The flight of humanity’s spirit cannot be supported by a single
wing.”
— Helena Roerich
Costs/Benefits
Such a program would cost $10.5 billion per year for ten years.[10]
An investment of this magnitude would increase national and world
population stability and help to insure rapid progress in all of the
other initiatives described here. There would be a large reduction
in the more than 50 million abortions performed worldwide each year,
20 million of which are unsafe or illegal—and in the attendant 80,000
deaths and the hundreds of thousands of disabilities of young women
per year as a result of bungled abortions.[11] In addition, infant
and maternal death rates would decline substantially as improvements
in female educational opportunities steadily raise the literacy rate
for women. Family incomes in developing nations would also grow under
the plan, as a result of higher rates of education and better health.
The experiences of developed nations make clear that the population
stabilization program would become self-sustaining when combined with
the successes of the other strategies listed at the Price of Peace
site.
The $10.5 billion per year for ten years cost of this program is 1.2%
of the world's annual military expenditures. Assuming that the population
stabilization program saves 80,000 lives per year, the amount the
world would save by implementing the program would be over $80 billion.[12]
Our potential collective wealth increases with each life saved, and
with each productive life added to the global economy. As population
stabilizes we may also increase the wealth of the world through the
decrease of the needs that the global population places on nature’s
life support systems.
Meeting our needs for food, water, sanitation, health, shelter, education,
and energy— and adding to this a stable population, leaves little
doubt that the wealth of our species is both unprecedented and unlimited.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
[1] World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, Population Division
of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat 2003 (UN, New York, 2003).
[2] Vital Signs 2003, (Washington DC, Worldwatch Institute, 2003).
[3] World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, Population Division
of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat 2003 (UN, New York, 2003).
[4] 2.5 billion was also the total population of the world in 1950.
[5] New York Times, “Humanity’s Slowing Growth” March 17, 2003.
[6] 2002 World Population Data Sheet, (Washington, D.C.: Population
Reference Bureau, 2002).
[7] Transition in World Population, (Washington D.C.,Population Reference
Bureau, March 2004).
[8] C. Wahren, “Population and Development—the Burgeoning Billions,”
The OECD Observer, 155, (Dec. 1988-Jan. 1989)
[9] State of the World’s Children 2001, UNICEF
[10] Population Action International, 1990 Report on Progress Towards
Population Stabilization, (Washington D.C.). Also: P. J. Hilts, "Plan
is Offered for Stable Birth Rate", New York Times, February 26,
1990, p. B9.
[11] Abortion: A Tabulation of Available Information, 3rd edition.
(World Health Organization, Geneva, 1997. Also: N. Sadik, The State
of World Population 1989—Investing in Women: The Focus of the Nineties,
(New York: United Nations Population Fund)
[12] Valuing the life of a human being at $1 million; valuing the
life at $100,000 results in a savings to the world of $8 billion;
valuing a life at $10,000 saves the world $800 million.
Back to Price of Peace