Poring Over the Population Reference Bureau’s



Ideology and Demography

The 2006 World Population Data Sheet

John Glad

University of Maryland

Abstract: an analysis of global population trends suggests that active population management is urgently required to prevent demographic disaster and that the foreign policies of the developed world need to be subordinated to the radical reduction of global populations.

Key words: accepted demographic theory (ADT), censorship, demographic projections, economic goals, environmental degradation, eugenics, family planning, foreign policy, global warming, ideology, invasive species, total fertility rate, voluntarism.

The 2006 World Population Data Sheet, published annually by the Population Reference Bureau, is a chart listing 236 countries and concatenated geographic areas against 28 parameters, creating a total of 6,608 records. Such a massive amount of information leaves its users free to draw a vast panoply of conclusions, many of which are mutually contradictory and usually stem from predetermined worldviews.

Not only is the Data Sheet available online at , those interested may even view a webcast of the one-hour press briefing introducing it. The presentations are intended to be professional and non-ideological, but the smiles, simultaneous and almost synchronized nodding, and general body language of the presenters create – perhaps inadvertently – an overall optimistic impression on questions of population quantity.

Accepted demographic theory (ADT) predicates self-interest as the motor of fertility: as economies are modernized, children are transformed from assets into liabilities, so that parents produce fewer of them, opting instead to raise their own personal consumption levels and maximize leisure time. Certainly this model thus far has been an excellent predictor. Global birth rates are indeed negatively correlated to economic growth, and fertility levels in the most developed economies – more often than not – have even fallen below replacement. ADT would appear to have been validated. But will it continue to provide a reliable frame of reference in the future? There are factors at play that threaten it:

1. According to the Data Sheet, 53% of the global population still makes do on less than $2 per day, and in many countries incomes are even declining. If incomes fail to rise in the underdeveloped countries, even ADT predicts continued high fertility.

2. The explicit goal of all countries is to maximize economic growth and, consequently, consumption. For the sake of hypothesis, let us assume that the ADT optimist scenario continues to be an accurate predictor. After all, China has maintained a 10% GDP rate for over a decade, India is now at 9%, and the Vietnamese government is strenuously attempting prevent its economy from overheating. What are the consequences of such a scenario? Imagine the rest of the world consuming at US rates. Has human society set before itself a suicidal goal?

3. The economic self-interest posited by ADT as the determinant of fertility levels may ultimately be replaced by genetic selection. Now that the former link between sexual activity and procreation has been undermined, people can have sex without begetting children, and they can have offspring without engaging in sexual activity. To a far greater extent than was formerly true, children are now born – not as an inadvertent byproduct of the sexual act – but because their parents wanted them. Modern selection adds child-wanting to the equation of sexual drive. In a genetically restructured society will high fertility be more heavily influenced by an innate desire for children? What governmental posture will be required on a finite planet whose individual residents are literally addicted to child bearing?

In contrast to the religious view of humankind as the pinnacle of creation, the science of ecology defines “infestation” as the introduction of an “invasive species” that is able to overwhelm competing species, at the very least disrupting and degrading the environmental balance, and, in its most extreme form, functioning so efficiently as a parasite that a tipping point is achieved, rendering the environment uninhabitable and ultimately perishing itself as a result. Human beings conform precisely to this definition. We have conquered the entire planet, are frantically exhausting resources that will be needed by future generations, and are precipitously degrading the environment. We are the invasive species par excellence.

With this background in mind, let us peruse the 2006 World Population Data Sheet. We are clearly faced with an emergency situation. At stake is the survival of our own species as well as that of our neighbors on the planet.

The mid 2006 estimate of global population is 6.555 billion. While the current TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is 2.7 children per women, the “medium” United Nations projection foresees an ultimate reduction of this indicator to 1.9, somewhat below replacement level (2.1). Hence the optimistic projection of a global population of only 7.94 billion by 2025 and 9.243 by 2050. As pointed out by PRB demographer Carl Haub during the presentation of the data, projections are not predictions, and they must be taken with a grain of salt. Global population could turn out to be billions larger.

Optimists and pessimists agree that growth will be largely limited to the “less developed” nations (excluding China): 63%, as opposed to 4% for the “more developed” countries. (PBR demographers at the data presentation preferred the expression “developing” over “less developed,” even though some countries are undergoing what is euphemistically referred to as “negative growth.”) China’s projection is for an augmentation of 10% by 2050.

With its one-child policy, China has succeeded in lowering its TFR to 1.6 children and the percentage of the population younger than 15 to only 20%, putting it on a near par with the more developed world (TFR = 1.6, population < 15 = 17%). By contrast, the rest of the less-developed world has a TFR of 3.4, with 35% of its population younger than 15. Even if the TFR is lowered, such a youthful age structure guarantees catastrophically high future fertility. The United States has consistently promoted the Indian model of “democracy,” even though India’s demographic policies have produced results that are judged unsatisfactory even by the Indian government. Insufficiently robust population policies are well on the way to producing ecological disaster.

The TFR for Africa is 5.1, with 42% of the population under 15. Although a solid majority of African governments view such high fertility as undesirable, only half of African women 15-49 use any form of contraception whatsoever, modern or traditional. If 92% of Vietnamese women think it’s time to stop after two children, the corresponding figure for Nigeria, Africa’s most highly populated nation, is a mere 4%. Financial statistics are equally depressing: If the mean individual income for the more developed world is $27,790 and $41,950 for the United States, Africans earn a mean wage of $2,480, with the corresponding figure for countries such as Guinea-Bissau, Niger, and Sierra Leone falling to the $700-$800 range. 66% of African populations subsist on less than $2 per day, and in western and eastern Africa this quotient rises to 83% and 79% respectively. AIDS is another disaster ravaging African populations, striking 1/3 of Swazilanders and ¼ of residents of Botswana and Lesotho.

The demographics of Latin America are better, but still not where demographers would like to see them: TFR = 2.5, population ................
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