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Population and Development – an Overview
by Franz Nuscheler
The world population has nearly tripled since the 1950s even though seen globally, the
fertility rate today is almost half as high as it was 60 years ago. Instead of five children, a
woman brings on average 2.5 children into the world. But since more children will be born
than are necessary for the preservation of the parent generation, the world population will
continue to grow in the future and these children can also become parents themselves one
day. The United Nations (UN) estimates that at the end of the century there will be over ten
billion people.
The strong population growth is mainly caused by the high birth rate and the resulting
increase in the number of young people. At the same time, medical care has improved and the
mortality rate has declined, so that more children can grow up. These conditions still exist in
many developing countries. In the least developed countries, women still have on average
four children, while the child mortality rate over the 1980s was nearly cut in half. Under such
conditions the population will continue to grow strongly. However, in other world regions,
such as in the majority of countries in Europe, the population is shrinking. Here, fewer
children are being born than are necessary to replace the parent population one to one. In
Germany, the average number of children per woman is at 1.4.
In the future, the population size will greatly change in individual countries. In the global
average, the population will grow, but this is not the case everywhere. There is also migratory
movement that can lead to a growth or a decrease in the population in individual countries.
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Global Population Growth
Country Groups/
Yearly Growth Rate
Fertility Rate Projected Population
of Population
2005-2010
2010
2050 (millions)
0.6
1.73
1600
0.6
1.77
1417
-0.1
1.26
101.7
1.2
2.25
766
1.2
2.10
288.1
0.7
1.83
73.4
1.8
3.35
10.7
1.5
2.70
2536
1.4
2.63
1613.8
2.2
3.79
335.2
1.4
2.25
222.5
2.3
4.45
1998.5
2.5
5.06
625.6
2.3
5.07
289.1
2.1
4.16
45.2
3.4
5.77
40.8
2.6
5.09
711.4
2.6
5.10
173.8
2.9
5.47
109.5
1.0
2.55
67.4
1.0
2.48
56.8
0.9
3.20
2.5
1.1
2.08
482.9
1.0
1.78
218.5
1.0
1.92
20.7
2.1
3.2
598.2
Region/ Countries
East Asia
- China
- Japan
Southeast Asia
- Indonesia
- Thailand
- Laos
South Asia
- India
- Pakistan
- Bangladesh
Africa
West Africa
- Nigeria
- Ghana
- Burkina Faso
East Africa
- Ethiopia
- Tanzania
Southern Africa
- South Africa
- Lesotho
South America
- Brazil
- Chile
Arab Countries
Less Developed
1.4
Countries
Developing Countries
2.3
„Industrialized
0.3
Countries“
World
1.2
Data Source: UNFPA State of the World Population 2010
2.67
7946
4.23
1672.4
1.65
1275.2
2.52
9150
This world population growth is therefore a large challenge for world politics and international
development policy because this growth is occurring in 97 percent of the world regions, which
are generally among the third world or the “South.” The fastest growing population is in subSaharan Africa despite the large mortality rate caused by AIDS. Additionally, some resource
poor African Sahel countries also have the highest birth rates. Here, the high population
growth can be connected to all of the negative structure characteristics of under development.
Since the population in both poor regions of Africa and Southeast Asia and the population rich
Arabic (and Islamic) countries grow the fastest, there is hardly a development policy
discussion that does not begin with a “population problem” and ends with the apocalyptic
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horror and catastrophe scenarios that involve a “population explosion.” This creates fear
because many see this to be the main cause of the feared “global march” from the poor
regions to the prosperous regions of the “OECD-world.” Migration does not work like a system
of communicating tubes that creates a national balance between demographic imbalances.
Not only in today’s industrialized countries has Malthus’ law of impoverishment been
disputed. Even in a few decades, the experience gained is conclusive in a few developing and
population policy success countries that it is clearly possible to reduce the development of
population growth and to break from Malthus suggested perpetual cycle of high population
growth and poverty. These are not only the East and Southeast Asian “Tiger countries,” but
rather, for instance, the “Sugar Island” Mauritius, which was able to lower the yearly
population growth from four to 0.7 percent through a rapid socio-economic structure change
and through systematic investment in education and health care. In the poor southern Indian
state Kerala, a high literacy among women has at least contributed to the decrease in the birth
rate despite a large rate of poverty among the national average. Thailand provides similar
proof for an effective population policy with an active social policy that has yielded an annual
population growth of only 0.7 percent (2010). Such outcomes that reduce fertility rates can
be achieved when at the same time, sufficient information, possibilities, and means of birth
control are offered. In the far eastern growth regions (with the Islamic majority in Malaysia
and Indonesia), the average yearly population growth rate will fall by 0.8 percent in the next
fifteen years based on UN estimates.
The growth of the world population is divided unequally among the regions because in many
cases, the level of development and value system of the “developing world” of the south is
different. Between Latin America and Africa, there are far greater socio-economic differences
between North and South America. The table shows that population growth is the highest
where the statistics show the greatest poverty, mainly where the largest deficits in education
and health care are reported, and population growth declines where the literacy rate among
women increased and the infant mortality rate has decreased.
The experience of the old industrialized countries and the new emerging economies show a
causal relationship between demographic and socio-economic development. Their track
record also teaches, however, that only an extensive social and cultural change that comes
from inside and can be supported from the outside can change the reproductive behaviors of
individuals and society. As long as children are seen as gifts from heaven or hold to be
evidence of masculinity in macho cultures, shipments of condoms and birth control pills may
do very little.
By the “Hope” principle (Klaus Leisinger), the development of the perpetual cycle of poverty
and high population growth can be broken, but everything must be considered that the
poorest developing countries are already confronted with far greater structural and
development problems than today’s industrialized countries were during their change from an
agrarian to an industrialized society:
•
The population growth in Europe and Japan rarely exceeded the one percent mark in
the 19th century while on average, from 1975 until 1999, the average growth of the
developing countries was 1.9 percent and in the poorest countries even at 2.6 percent.
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•
•
Europe yielded a significant portion of its population growth through emigration to its
colonies and to the American “New World”, while today, the outlet for migration from
the regions with high population growth is increasingly blocked.
In a large portion of the third world, the per-capita income is less and the human and
real capital is less developed than in Europe, North America, and Japan during the
times of high population growth. Consequently, they have a difficult time absorbing
the population growth productively.
The table also shows that there are large regional differences where contraceptives are in use,
such as in Islamic countries where contraceptives could have a religious meaning, but in the
poorest countries these regional differences are due to ignorance and the limited access to
health and family planning centers.
Education, health care, and modern contraception usage
Country Groups/
Illiteracy Rate
Contraceptive
Prevalenceb
Infant Mortality Ratea
Regions/Countries
Men
Women
East Asia
..
..
- China
3.3
9.5
Southeast Asia
..
..
- Indonesia
4.8
11.2
- Thailand
4.4
8.5
South Asia
..
..
- India
24.8
49.2
- Pakistan
33.2
60.0
West Africa
..
..
- Nigeria
28.5
51.2
- Niger
57.1
84.9
- Ghana
27.7
40.7
East Africa
..
..
- Kenya
9.7
17.2
- Tanzania
21.0
33.7
Central Africa
..
..
- DR Congo
22.5
43.9
- Angola
17.2
43
Latin America and the
..
..
Caribbean
- Brazil
10.2
9.8
- Mexico
5.4
8.5
Arab Countries
..
..
Less Developed
..
..
Countries
“Industrialized
..
..
Countries”
a
per thousand live births, b modern methods
Data Source: UNFPA State of the World Population 2010
2010
21
22
26
24
6
54
52
61
94
107
84
71
72
60
60
109
114
111
86
87
60
61
81
53
56
27
15
15
11
24
26
46
26
19
21
6
20
71
22
15
38
77
71
46
50
61
6
68
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Many studies have proven that with increasing levels of education, the number of children per
woman and the high number of unwanted pregnancies, for which a quarter of the population
growth is attributed to, will decrease. Investments in the education system, mainly in the
education of women, and in the health care system are not only elementary laws of human
rights, but rather, they also count as population policies.
An expert from the World Population Council offered a simple solution for this complicated
problem: “Send every girl to school for eight years, prohibit her early marriage and establish
social security, then everything is okay.”
The development and population policies’ track records argue against revelling in the defeatist
horror and disaster scenarios and instead, give persuasion power to the recommendations of
the Cairo World Population Conference:
•
•
•
•
•
Fight against mass poverty through higher investment in the basic social services;
The improvement of education chances, especially for girls and women, and the
comprehensive development of basic health services and consultation centers for
family planning;
The development of a social security system that reduces the pressure to have children
so that they can care for the elderly;
Strengthen programs for women’s development because equal opportunity for women
is a principle requirement to develop successful population policy objectives;
Finally, higher financial expenditures for bi- and multilateral family planning
programs.
However, the hope from the success of all of these recommendations that the development
and population experts collectively created quickly disappeared because many industrialized
countries, especially the United States, not only decreased their financial contributions to
multilateral family planning programs, but also did not increase their funds for the fight
against poverty that they had repeatedly discussed at international conferences. Therefore,
this also threatens to cause the failure of the main Millennium Development Goal of reducing
the absolute number of those in poverty by half by 2015. If the world population does not
exceed nine billion by the middle of the 21st century, which is not mainly dependent on the
demographic momentum, but also on the political will of the political classes in the north and
south, then more can be invested in social development.
Literature / Links
Brown, Lester R./Gary Gardner/Brian Halweil (2000): Wie viel ist zu viel? 19 Dimensionen der
Bevölkerungsentwicklung. Stuttgart.
DGVN (Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen): Bevölkerung und Entwicklung.
Informationsdienst (lfd.).
Haupt, Arthur/Thomas T. Kane/DSW (Hg.) (1999): Handbuch Weltbevölkerung. Begriffe,
Fakten, Konzepte. Stuttgart.
Leisinger, Klaus M. (1993): Hoffnung als Prinzip. Bevölkerungswachstum: Einblicke und
Ausblicke, Basel/Boston/Berlin.
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Leisinger, Klaus M. (1999): Die sechste Milliarde. Weltbevölkerung und nachhaltige
Entwicklung, München.
Population Reference Bureau (2011): World Population Data Sheet 2011. Washington, D.C.
UNFPA (UN Bevölkerungsfonds) (2011): State of the World Population 2011. New York.
UN Population Division (2011): World Population Prospects. The 2010 Revision. New York.
State: September 2011
The Online-Handbook Demography of the Berlin-Institute is supported by
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