A burgeoning world population

DURING 2004, 133,000,000 people were born and 57,000,000 died, expanding world population by 76,000,000. This excess of births over deaths was concentrated in developing countries, which added 73,000,000 compared with 3,000,000 in the industrial nations. World population, growing by 1.2% annually, should reach 6,400,000,000 by the end of 2005.

Just over 1,000,000,000 of the Earth's inhabitants live in the industrialized nations of Europe, North America, Oceania, and Japan, where populations are expanding, on average, 0.25% a year. Meanwhile, the globe's other 5,200,000,000 people live in the less developed countries, where populations are rising 1.5% annually--six times as fast.

Six countries account for half the annual increase, and all of these but the U.S. are in the developing world: India (21%), China (12%), Pakistan (five percent), and Bangladesh, Nigeria, and the U.S. (four percent each).

China--long the world's most populous country--is likely to cede its top position to India by 2035. In 1968, China's annual growth rate peaked at 2.7%; by 2004, it had slowed to 0.7%. Its population, now at 1,300,000,-000, is projected to top out at 1,450,000,-000 in 2031. India's population, which is growing by 1.5% annually, is not expected to crest until 2065 at 1,560,000,000.

It took from the beginning of human existence until early in the 19th century for our ranks to swell to 1,000,000,000. We reached the second billion 123 years later, in 1927. Since then, however, the milestones have arrived much quicker: World population hit 3,000,000,000 in 1960; 4,000,000,000 in 1974; 5,000,000,000 in 1987; and 6,000,000,000 in 1999. We likely will hit 7,000,000,000 by 2013.

There are 17 countries where women bear an average of six or more children. All but two of them, Afghanistan and Yemen, are in Africa. Women in Niger, Somalia, Angola, Uganda, Yemen, and Mali have, on average, seven or more offspring. At this rate, each of these poverty-stricken countries faces another doubling of its population within the next quarter-century.

In Europe, however, women check in with an average birth rate of 1.4. Worldwide, there are more than 60 countries with fertility at or below replacement level. The smallest families today are in the Eastern European countries, Spain, and Italy, where women have just one child on average. Populations in these locales already are dropping or are set to decline by the end of this decade.

The number of children a woman bears largely is determined by her education, access to family planning information and services, economic status, and cultural environment. Nearly 61% of the world's married women use some method of family planning to prevent or control the timing or spacing of their pregnancies. Some 201,000,000 women worldwide want to limit their family size but lack access to a choice of effective contraception.

The year 2004 marked the 10th anniversary of the landmark International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt, where delegates from 179 nations agreed to work toward universal access to family planning and reproductive health services by 2015. The participating countries pledged to invest a combined $17,000,000,000 a year by the turn of the century, with annual donations to increase to $22,000,000,000. The developing countries promised to put up two-thirds of the total, while the more affluent donor nations agreed to provide the rest.

Although we now are halfway to 2015, neither developing nor industrial nations have fulfilled their pledges. Developing countries have at least met 80% of their promised contributions, but the wealthier donor countries have given only hale Very few nations have paid their bill in full.

Meeting the needs of the 201,000,000 women without access to a range of effective family planning services would cost an estimated $3,900,000,000 a year. This annual funding could avert some 52,000,000 pregnancies, of which 22,000,000 are ended by induced abortions. It is rare for such a modest expenditure to have the potential to achieve such gains.

Not only is meeting these needs a humanitarian concern, it presents the opportunity for a substantial economic dividend. In Bangladesh, for example, the estimated $62 that the government spends to prevent an unwanted pregnancy is one-tenth what it would otherwise spend on social services for mother and child. Educating girls also can provide huge payoffs, as added years in school consistently lead to progressively smaller families, higher wages, and taster economic growth.

The latest population projections from me united Nations snow a somewhat lesser jump than previously expected, reflecting lower fertility as well as higher mortality rates related to AIDS. HIV/AIDS is responsible for lowering life expectancy in a number of African countries to nearly medieval levels. In Botswana, where one out of every three adults is HIV-positive, life expectancy is 40 years. Across sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy is 46. While some progress has been made in developing maternal and child health programs, an infant born in Africa is 13 times more likely to die before its first birthday than one born in Europe or North America. A global comparison of the poorest and richest fifths of the population shows that the poorest children are twice as likely to die before the age of five and that the poorest women are twice as likely to be malnourished.

With water and land in limited supply, whether we move toward higher or lower projections may have more influence on future environmental and social stability than anything else we do. The most humane way to achieve the low-level projections is to improve health and social conditions through reduced birth rates, not to allow death rates to climb as a result of negligence.

Janet Larsen is a research associate at the Earth Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
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