SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS
Population growth
The facts behind the figures
Later in the day, the children’s organisation Plan India
welcomed a new-born girl in the Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh as the seven billionth child. The choice was
the result of a decision to highlight the problem of
India’s ‘missing girls’. Sex-selective abortions and female
infanticide are widespread in a society which places
greater value on boys than girls. With 111 boys for
every 100 girls, Uttar Pradesh has one of the highest
rates of ‘missing girls’ in India. However, where there is
no discrimination against girls, 105 boys per 100 girls is
regarded as normal.
The United Nations Population Fund designated 31
October 2011 as the day on which the world’s population
hit seven billion. In fact, no one knows the exact date of
the next population milestone. Many countries do not
conduct regular censuses and figures are incomplete.
The United States Census Bureau, in contrast to the UN,
estimated that the global population reached seven
billion in March 2012.
But there is general agreement that the world’s
population has been growing faster than ever before.
It took humanity until around 1800 to reach its first
billion, and since the second half of the twentieth
century, numbers have grown rapidly. In the last fifty
years, the global population has more than doubled,
reaching six billion in 2000. It has taken only a dozen
years to add another billion to reach the recent
milestone of seven billion1.
On current rates of population growth around 380,000
babies are born every day, so there could be as many
as 400,000 claimants to the title of the world’s seven
billionth person2.
The UN chose a baby in the Philippines to symbolically
represent the seven billionth arrival. Danica May
Camacho was born in a Manila hospital just before
midnight on 30 October. Government and UN officials
used the publicity to highlight the country’s populationrelated problems. The Philippines has the highest rate of
childbirth in Asia, and teenage pregnancies are common.
Experts use population milestones to highlight the
challenges facing people in many parts of the world. For
instance, the lack of adequate food and clean drinking
water, insecurity and conflict.
Most of the population growth is taking place in
countries with high birth-rates, with the majority in
African countries. The populations of both India and
China now exceed one billion3.
Future estimates suggest that the world’s population
will reach eight billion by 2025, exceeding nine billion by
2050 and ten billion by 21003.
But there is also general agreement that global
population growth will continue to slow over the next 50
years because fertility has declined almost everywhere
except sub-Saharan Africa. Having peaked at over 2 per
cent a year in the 1960s, growth is currently around 1
per cent a year. It is projected to decline to below 0.1 per
cent before 2100.
The projections vary according to the anticipated rate of
fertility, which fluctuates over time. High fertility would
result in a global population of nearly 16 billion by 2100,
while low fertility would see a fall in the population of
the same year to just over six billion3.
The further into the future experts look, the wider the
gap between projections based on different fertility
rates, and the less certain the estimates.
1 The ESRC Research Centre for Population Change, cpc.geodata.soton.ac.uk/resources/downloads/PBoyle_7billion_31_Oct_2011.pdf
2 The Population Reference Bureau estimates 382,351, www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2011/world-population-data-sheet/data-sheet.aspx
3 The ESRC Research Centre for Population Change, cpc.geodata.soton.ac.uk/resources/downloads/PBoyle_7billion_31_Oct_2011.pdf
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SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS
Population growth
Population management: The key issues
Talk of a global population problem can be misleading.
The components that make up the world’s population
growth — fertility and mortality — are subject to
fluctuations over time. As there is no fixed limit to the
numbers the planet can support, many experts argue
that it makes more sense to consider the ability of
societies to provide for their people.
Of the seven billion who currently inhabit the planet,
around a billion overeat, a billion go hungry and
another billion are malnourished. Taking into account
the amount of food wasted among more affluent
populations, the world already produces enough to
sustain at least nine billion people.
The size of population that can be sustained in any
region varies according to local circumstances such as
geography and climate. Political and economic factors
also affect the production and distribution of food; as
aid agencies point out, famine is often due to manmade causes such as conflict.
Population issues are also bound up with social and
cultural expectations to do with family size, the use of
contraception and the role of women.
Nonetheless, there is an emerging consensus that
stabilising the global population is desirable. This means
maintaining the fertility rate at ‘replacement level’: an
average of 2.1 births per woman. This would be enough
to replace each parent, plus a little more to compensate
for early mortality and those who remain childless.
Many countries use this as a benchmark against which
to measure their own fertility.
In richer, more industrialised countries, the challenge
lies at the other end of the spectrum: how to increase
the fertility rate in the face of an ageing population.
As people have smaller families and live longer due
to improved health and living standards, the number
of births is falling below the number of deaths. With
the number of people capable of working and taking
on caring responsibilities shrinking, governments are
worried about how they will provide for an elderly
population.
As a result of the greying of Europe, some countries are
adopting ‘pro-natalist’ policies which encourage people
to have children.
In the first half of the twentieth century, the pronatalist policies adopted by Germany, Spain and Italy
were associated with politically dubious attempts to
manipulate the population. But modern France has put
in place a wide range of family-friendly measures that
appear to have boosted the country’s fertility rate while
promoting the position of women.
Sweden, meanwhile, has chosen to avoid explicitlylabelled pro-natalist measures while pursuing gender
equality policies likely to help maintain the fertility rate.
But at 1.98 in 2010, the fertility rate remains below
replacement level1.
Whichever approach is taken, the complexity of factors
affecting fertility rates makes it difficult to be certain of
the impact of any policy.
But there is less agreement as to how to go about
achieving this stability, particularly among governments.
Some states have employed strongly interventionist
measures in an attempt to control their populations.
These are often controversial because of their human
cost, especially to women and girls.
One notable example is China’s one child policy, which
is thought to be responsible for abortions of female
foetuses and the enforced sterilisation of child-bearing
women.
1 Eurostat, epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/population/data/main_tables
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SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS
Population growth
Case study: China’s one-child policy
In 1979, China introduced the controversial one-child policy as part
of range of measures aimed at reducing the growing population.
Previously, Chinese governments had encouraged large families to
increase the workforce needed to promote the country’s economic
growth. But in the early 1970s, with growth rates averaging five
births per woman, the government feared that the population
would soon become unsustainable.
Family planning officials monitored births and large fines were
levied on any couples who succeeded in having more than one
child. Other punishments included the confiscation of property or
loss of jobs. There is evidence that many women of child-bearing
age have undergone forced sterilisations, while girl-children are
abandoned or put up for adoption.
The policy seems to have had some impact on the birth rate, as
the fertility rate in China fell from around three births per woman
in 1980 to around 1.6 in 20081. The Chinese government claims it
has meant 300-400 million fewer births than the country would
otherwise have had.
This claim is contested by some academics who argue that the
fertility rate started to fall in the mid 1970s before the introduction
of the one-child policy when the government began to encourage
delayed marriages and longer intervals between births.
But thirty years after the policy was introduced, the gender
balance of the Chinese population has been upset. In a society
which places greater value on boys, it is the female foetuses that
tend to be aborted and the girls who are neglected or abandoned.
By 2000, the sex ratio had risen to 120 males per 100 females at
birth, and 130 in some provinces. As a result, many Chinese men
have difficulties in finding wives. In the west, many couples are
adopting Chinese girls.
There is also concern about how China will support an ageing
population given the dwindling number of working people and
carers.
Although officially still in force, the one-child policy has been
relaxed in recent years. Couples can now apply to have a second
child if their first child is a girl, or if both of them are ‘only children’.
1 Estimates by the World Bank, data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS
Population growth
Case study: Singapore’s dual policy
Singapore is unusual in that it has introduced
government-led policies aimed at both reducing and
increasing the population over the course of a few
decades.
The government was particularly concerned by the fact
that the population’s university-educated women were
favouring careers over having children, with the result
that most children were born to less-educated couples.
Following the second World War, the average
Singaporean woman was having six children,
contributing to rapid population growth. The
government, concerned at how a still-developing
country would provide for a growing population,
introduced the ‘Stop at Two’ programme in the late
1960s.
In an attempt to remedy this, in 1984 the government
introduced the Graduate Mothers Programme, which
gave preferential school places to children whose
mothers were university graduates. Grants were offered
to less-educated women who agreed to be sterilised
after the birth of their second child. The government
also established a Social Development Unit to act as
matchmaker for single university graduates. The policies
proved unpopular and most were soon abandoned.
The vigorous state campaign which impressed on
citizens the benefits of a small family was so successful
that the fertility rate declined rapidly. An annual
population growth of over 4 per cent per year in the
late 1950s dropped to around 1.6 per cent in the
1990s1.
In 1987, the government switched to a pro-natalist
policy with a campaign entitled ‘Have Three or More, if
You Can Afford It.’ A new package of incentives for larger
families included tax rebates for third children, subsidies
for daycare and longer maternity leave.
Pro-natalist measures remain in place, targeted
particularly at the well-educated. The government aims
to selectively increase the population by 40 per cent
over 25 years. But the introduction of a baby bonus
scheme in 2001 has failed to halt the fall in fertility, with
the total fertility rate declining to an average of less
than 1.2 births per woman in 20112.
Over the period of its changing approaches to
population management, Singapore has undergone a
rapid ‘demographic transition’, moving from the high
birth and death rates typical of a poor country, to the
low birth and death rates of an industrialised economy.
It is now one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
1 Department of Statistics, Singapore: www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/demo.html
2 Department of Statistics, Singapore: www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html#birth
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SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS
Population growth
Case study: France’s pro-natalist policy
The comprehensive raft of family-friendly policies
adopted in the 1970s seem to have succeeded in giving
France one of the highest birthrates in Europe. This
has bucked the continent’s trend of declining fertility
as women have increasingly favoured career over
childbearing.
The measures are designed to encourage women to
continue to work while having children. They include
tax breaks for parents, statutory parental leave and
government-subsidised daycare. A state grant is also
awarded to those who have a third child.
2006 proved a record year for France, with an average
of two births per woman, the highest fertility rate the
country had seen in quarter of a century.
[Eurostat, epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/
portal/population/data/main_tables] The rise in births
came amid a continuing drop in marriage rates. Almost
half the 2006 babies were born to unmarried mothers,
suggesting that liberal social attitudes may have also
helped to boost fertility.
It is also possible that France’s long history of pronatalism, which goes back to 1939 legislation offering
cash incentives to stay-at-home-mothers, has given the
population confidence that families will be supported.
France now has the third-highest fertility rate in Europe
with an average of 2.03 children per woman in 2010,
topped by Iceland at 2.2 and Ireland at 2.07.
[Eurostat, epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/
portal/population/data/main_tables]
Further links
ESRC Centre for Population Change
First established in 2009 and funded by the ESRC, this centre was the UK’s first research centre on population change.
www.cpc.ac.uk
Population Reference Bureau
This US-based organisation seeks to inform people about topics including population, health and the environment.
www.prb.org
Eurostat
As the statistical office for the European Commission, Eurostat enables comparisons between countries and regions by
providing the European Union with European level statistics.
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/
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