Booming world population doesn’t mean growth everywhere

Posted by Dave on March 5, 2010 | 4 Comments

Population changes don’t affect all nations equally at once. While population in some countries is increasing rapidly, in others it’s slowing or even declining. Take a look at the case of Japan and Nigeria:

	Nigeria		Japan
	1950	2005	1950	2005
Population (Millions)	32.8	131.5	83.6	127.7
Lifetime births per woman	6.9	5.9	2.8	1.3
Annual births (Millions)	1.7	5.6	2.1	1.1
Annual deaths (Millions)	1.0	2.5	0.8	1.0
Population under age 15 (percent)	42	44	35	14

Currently Nigeria and Japan have nearly equal populations, but in 1950, Japan’s population was almost three times larger than Nigeria’s. Nigeria’s birthrate has barely budged, while Japan’s halved over that period. Life expectancy has increased in both countries, but in Japan this increase has been overwhelmed by its plummeting birthrate. Now annual births barely exceed deaths, and its population is expected to start decreasing in the very near future. Japan’s average income per person was thirty times larger than Nigeria’s in 2004, where 91 percent of the population lived on less than $2 per day. That would barely cover my daily cookie allowance, let alone provide my entire means of sustenance.

This data all comes from a 2005 paper by Mary Kent and Carl Haub. They make a fairly convincing case that considering “global population” without thinking about regional differences is pretty much pointless.

While population is growing rapidly in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, it’s stabilizing in much of East Asia and beginning to decline in Europe. Even if we agree that increasing global population is a problem (and we may very well not agree), increasing population is the least of worries in many places.

Take a look at this recent article on the situation in China:

China has drained its once vast reserves of unemployed workers in rural areas and is running out of fresh laborers for its factories.

Since China does not release reliable, timely statistics on employment, wages are considered the best barometer of labor shortages. And temp agencies here in Guangzhou raised their rate for factory workers this week to $1.17 an hour, from 95 cents an hour before the new year holiday.
[...]
At a government-run employment center in downtown Guangzhou, employers seeking workers outnumbered job-hunters Thursday afternoon.

Outside, Liang Huoqiao, a 22-year-old plastics worker, joined a small group of men and women studying a 40-foot-wide list of companies seeking workers. “You can walk into any factory and get a job,” he said.

China, of course, is the elephant in the room when it comes to population. Since 1977 its “one child” policy has severely curtailed possible population increase. One wonders if this policy will be maintained in the long run as China’s population ages.

Kent and Haub point out that once the birthrate goes below the sustainable level of around 2 per woman, populations skew older and older. In Japan, 20 percent of the population is over 65, compared to just 3 percent in Nigeria.

The biggest population growth, almost universally, is confined to impoverished nations. So when we’re talking about global population growth, we’re not necessarily talking about growth in the industrialized world. We’re talking about the potential for massive poverty, but perhaps not an unsustainable amount of economic growth…

…unless…

A large portion of the world’s poor migrate to wealthier regions in order to find a better life. While most nations restrict immigration, there’s a giant loophole that might mean bad news for the environment. In China—and especially India, there are still huge impoverished populations. If these groups migrate to the wealthier regions and become part of their growing middle classes, then industrialization, with its associated consumption, carbon output and effects on global warming, could continue even while the wealthiest nations contract. It may be that what matters, at least from a global climate change perspective, isn’t so much total world population, but total wealthy world population.

One additional point I’ve left out of this discussion: The US continues to grow quite quickly. While our birthrate is just at maintenance level, our million-plus immigrants each year ensure that our population continues to grow. And, of course, America is still the world’s biggest contributor to global warming.

Kent, M.M., & Haub, C. (2005). Global Demographic Divide Population Bulletin, 60 (4), 3-24

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