Cross-posted earlier at The European Tribune
The 25th international congress on population is currently underway in
Tours, France, and thus benefits from strong coverage in the French
press. I rely today, as usual, on Le Monde's extensive coverage.
First of all, some nice graphs:
(life expectancy)
Two facts to be noted:
- Life expectancy in rich countries is still way higher than in the
rest of the world, especially in Africa;
- the big countries with the highest expected population increases are
either in Africa, or Muslim, or both - except for the US. Or is that
graph trying to tell us something?
(population)
The equator vs temperate zones difference is pretty striking - or is it
rich vs poor again? Do kids cause poverty, or are they a consequence of
poverty?
::::::: More facts and tidbits below :::::::
In random order, a list of facts pulled from the paper version of Le
Monde (sources at the end of the diary):
- Germany's population declined for the first time in 2004 including net immigration
- India's population grows by 15 million per year.
- Europe's expected population growth in the coming years should be
about 1 million people per year, of which 250,000 to 300,000 will be
natural growth - of which, 200,000 will come from France - the rest
being immigration.
- Russia's population has declined from 148 million in 1989 to 143
million today, despite about 9 million ethnic Russians moving from
other Soviet republics in the period. Russia lost 700,000 people in
2004. Life expectancy fro men has declined by about 10 years in the
period, a quarter of which is attributed to increased alcoholism
(consumption increased by 45% between 1989 and 2000). Gorbatchev's
enduring inpopularity is due in large part to his harsh crackdown in
1985-86 on alcoholism (limiting vodka production, tearing vineyards -
one of the causes of the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, btw - and enforcing
the whole strictly) - life expectancy increased by 3 years in
just one year of crackdown...
- the girl to boy ratio in India has fallen from 0.945 to 0.927
between 1991 and 2001. In New Delhi, it is down to 0.865 (from 0.915).
Le Monde notes that the situation is very different in Southern India,
which has European like social and demographic numbers, and in northern
India, which is more Africa-like. This could create real tensions
inside the country. Le Monde notes that almost half of the population
of the country cannot read of write - 36% of men and 61% of women [J:
not sure if this applies to the overall population or to the adults
only].
- of all immigrants in OECD countries (the rich world), 40% come
from Europe, 22% from the Americas (mostly Latin), 9% from Africa (half
from the Maghreb and half from Sub-Saharan Africa), and 21% from
Asia.
- France's unique situation in Europe (with 1.9 children per women,
only Ireland and Iceland, both at 2.0, do better, whereas Eastern
Europe is at 1.2, Germany, Italy and Spain are at 1.3 and most of the
others at 1.5-1.7) is attributed to a coherent - and permanent -
global policy which includes tax advantages for families, 100%
schooling for young children (3 years old - 3and 5% of 2 years old
are), and a culture where it is normal for women to work and have
children. (And, to answer a question likely to come, most of the births
are NOT from immigrants, who have been shown to "adopt" extremely
quickly very similar demographic patterns as "natives", and the
percentage of foreigners in French population is not expected to move
significantly. Remember alos that France has ALWAYS been an immigration
country, this is not something new like in Italy, Spain or Germany).
Europe is getting older, but so is China, which may be yet another
hardly manageable challenge for that country. Will the 3 billion new
citizens of the world's poorest countries be enough "fuel" for another
extra 100 million Americans consumers and who knows how many newly
urbanised Chinese to live the good life of the "civilised" West?
While it is certainly unwise to rejoice at population growth, I am not
sure that population decline is something that will be uneventful, and
targetting a stable population (at least in terms of children per
woman, i.e. an index close to 2 for thatmeasure), like happens in
France, is probably the soundest course. The politics of Italy and
Germany (not to mention Eastern Europe), and of China, are going to
become very interesting in the coming decades... The global girl/boy
imbalance in a number of Asian countries, with China also touched by
the phenomenon described above for India) is also going to create some
pretty unpredictable tensions (remember that the simplest way to
occupy/get rid of single young men is war).
At least, Emmanuel Todd, the French demographer and sociologists,
predicts (in his book "After the Empire") that the demographic
transition in Arab countries is already taking place at an accelerated
pace and that the current worries coming form that part of the world
are likely to subside within a generation.
Of course, demographics provide a lot of "hard" information, which have
relevance only in the very long term. It will be interesting to see how
these trends clash with what appear to be shorter deadlines for peak
oil, climate change, and commodity and global transport price
increases... Will humans become more mobile than goods and capital
again?
Moins féconde, vivant plus longtemps, l'humanité
vieillit (Less fecund, living longer, mankind gets older)
Alarmante chute de la fécondité dans l'Union
Européenne (Worrying fall of fecundity in the EU)
Les hommes russes décimés par l'alcool et le
"zapoi" (Russian men decimated by alcohol and "zapoi")
In 2050, l'Inde sera plus peuplée que la Chine (In
2050, India's population will be larger than China's)