Introduction To Environmental Science

Demography – Population
continued
Tanzania’s president has urged his country’s women to “set
your ovaries free” and have more children in a bid to boost
the economy.

“When you have a big population you build the economy.

That’s why China’s economy is so huge,” he said, citing India
and Nigeria as other examples of countries that gained from
a demographic dividend.

Speaking in his home town of Chato on Tuesday, he added:

“I know that those who like to block ovaries will complain
about my remarks. Set your ovaries free, let them block
theirs.”

(The independent)
 The Demographic Transition

• Demographic Transition is a model describing the transition from high birth and death
rates to low birth and death rates. It is associated with a transition from pre-industrial
to industrial and post-industrial economies.
(first described by Warren Thompson 1929)

• Epidemiological Transition (drop in death rate)

Is followed years later by

• Fertility Transition (drop in birth rate)

• The Demographic Window is a period when a given population has relatively few
children and relatively few old people (a large productive population)
The demographic
transition is the
general pattern
of demographic
change from
high birth and
death rates to
low birth and
death rates.
 What Factors Affect Population Growth?

• Contraception: use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent

pregnancy
• Family planning
• Low infant mortality
• Moving to cities
• Female education
• Marriage age
• Economic security
• Life expectancy
• Legal limits
 Fertility Rate

• The fertility rate is the average number of children that would be born to a
woman over her lifetime
– Assuming current fertility rates and that the women survives to the end
of her reproductive life.
• Replacement fertility level – 2.1 children per mother.
– A fertility rate of less than 2.1 will eventually lead to a drop in total
population.
– A fertility rate greater than 2.1 will lead to exponential growth

https://www.gapminder.org/answers/how-did-babies-per-woman-change-
in-the-world/
 Fertility Rate:
Why children per women not per man?
• “Research on birth rates mostly focuses
on women, while ignoring the role of
men in the birth of children. This is
largely because of the scarcity of data
on male fertility. Two researchers at the
Max Planck Institute for Demographic
Research in Rostock have used
statistical methods to show why the
birth rates of men as well as of women
should be given more attention.”
Fertility Rate: Why children per women not per man?
Fertility Rates, Iran, Japan, Nigeria

NIGERIA
JAPAN

IRAN
 Infant Mortality

• The Infant Mortality Rate is the number of deaths of infants

under a given age per thousand live births
• The under five mortality rate is the number of deaths of
children under the age of five per 1,000 live births

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?year=2015
 Predictions – World Population 2100
"Prediction is difficult, particularly
about the future"
(attributed to Niels Bohr)

Niels Bohr
Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete
and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or
orbit) to another.
Poor Countries, Rich Countries
 Fertility and Female Education
• Contraceptives (‫)ﻣواﻧﻊ اﻟﺣﻣل‬
• Cost of children
• Looking for quality not
quantity
• Marry later

9 billion or 11 billion? The

research behind new population
projections

http://blog.iiasa.ac.at/2014/09/23/9-
billion-or-11-billion-the-research-behind-
new-population-projections/

https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/228/pdfs/female-
education-and-its-impact-on-fertility.pdf?v=1
 13,171

11,184

9,592
Predictions: Nigeria, Japan, Iran
 Life Expectancy
Life Expectancy
is “An estimate
of the average
number of
years a
newborn
infant would
live if
prevailing
patterns of
mortality at
the time of its
birth were to
stay the same
throughout its
life”
 Population Predictions
• Thomas Malthus “An Essay on the
Principal of Population” (1798).
– He predicted exponential population growth
and mass-starvation
• He predicted that as people became richer they would have more children
• He predicted that food production could not keep up with population

• Paul Ehrlich “The Population Bomb” (1968)

– Predicted mass starvation and social upheaval (‫)اﻻﺿطراﺑﺎت اﻻﺟﺗﻣﺎﻋﯾﺔ‬:
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people
will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late
date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…“
 World Population - Prediction

• Which factors affect future population?

– Today’s population (including age distribution)
– Growth rate
– Fertility rate - children per mother
– Life expectancy
– Health - child mortality
– Age of marriage (1st child)
– Wealth of country
– Education (in particular female education)
– Wars and disasters (e.g. the great leap forward)
How to judge the accuracy of population predictions?

• Reliability of the source?

• Who paid for the research?
• Other predictions?
• Time scale – short term/long term
• Unexpected extreme events?
• Individual countries V total world population
• Past accuracy
– https://www.gapminder.org/answers/how-reliable-is-the-
world-population-forecast/ (Hans Rosling)
 World Population forecasts – Sources
Predicted Population 2050 and 2100
• United Nations
– World Population Prospects The 2017 Revision
– https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFindings.pdf

• IIASA
– World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century

• Deutshe Bank
• Demographer Sanjeev Sanyal
– http://www.aei.org/publication/the-end-of-global-population-growth-may-be-almost-
here-and-a-lot-sooner-than-the-un-thinks/
– http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/20/business/World-Population-Could-Peak-by-
2055.html
 IIASA prediction
• IIASA
– World Population and Human Capital in the
21st Century
– http://blog.iiasa.ac.at/2014/09/23/9-billion-or-11-billion-the-research-behind-
new-population-projections/
 International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA) prediction
“IIASA now systematically adds a differentiation by level of education in addition to
the conventional age and sex to its population projections, as education
significantly influences fertility rates (Policy Brief: Rethinking population policies).
Once this important source of population heterogeneity is explicitly taken into
account the future looks different. In the example of Nigeria, the UN projects an
increase from 160 million in 2010 to 914 million in 2100 while IIASA projects only
576 million.”