I'm embedding several graphs from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Population Division). The trends shown are exactly what the late Hans Rosling was talking about in the videos I've posted here previously (he worked for the U.N.).
I have surprised (perhaps shocked) some people by calmly stating that the world has already reached "peak baby" (or peak child, if defined as younger than 15):
The stunning rise in world population that we grew up with was in large part due to improvements in infant mortality worldwide:
With more children living to adulthood, there is no longer the same drive for women to have large numbers of children as a social security safety blanket. Given the choice (and appropriate information and products), women worldwide have chosen to have fewer children.
Note that the future of that curve falls below the theoretical "replacement rate" of 2.0. In many places in the world the number of children per female is already below 2. This has enormous implications for public policy, immigration policies, and economic forecasting.
See my companion post: "World birthrates are plummeting."
I don't think child mortality has nearly as much to do with it as the fact that until 1962 or so, most women had no reliable way to prevent pregnancy. Both gestating and raising kids are way harder on a woman than men could ever know. Add in having to get a job or starve, and it's a no-brainer.
ReplyDeleteLast I looked "infant" (as opposed to child) mortality was getting worse in the USA. Pretty much the only Westernised country where this is happening.
DeleteRe: birth control - I'd argue that using birth control was societally more acceptable 20 or 30 years ago than it is now, because of niche religious kinks being adopted by conservative governments across the globe.
Falling birth rates are due to economies becoming more efficient at squeezing everything from populations, leaving them little inclination or energy for children.