In both rich and poor countries alike consumption is more threatening than population growth. Discuss.?

Question

In both rich and poor countries alike consumption is more threatening than population growth. Discuss.?

Answer 1

Hi dear,,,,

Children born in six African countries can expect to die before their 41st birthday while kids born in 16 countries can expect to live past 80 according to an annual report released by the UN's World Health Organization.

The report, "World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health", released earlier this month reveals a widening between the quality of life for the world's poorest and richest people.

Most of the world's shortest life expectancies occurs in Africa where the AIDS epidemic, malnutrition, curable diseases, and civil strife have taken a tremendous toll on human life. In all, of the 29 countries where life expectancy at birth is 50 years or less, 28 are in Africa. The only outlier is warn-torn Afghanistan, where life expectancy is 42 years. Of the 40 countries with the shortest life expectancy, 38 are in Africa.

In Iraq, presently one of the world's most violent countries, life expectancy for babies born in 2004 was 55 years.

The report shows an estimated shortage of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers worldwide. It says the shortage is most severe in the world's poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where health workers are most needed.  

According to the report, the world's shortest life expectancy occurs in Zimbabwe where strongman Robert Mugabe has held a stranglehold over the once prosperous country for more than 25 years. A child born in Zimbabwe will be lucky to see the age of 37. If she is female, the UN forecasts death by 34.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a baby born in Japan can expect to live to 82 years. In all, 47 countries have life expectancies exceeding 75 years.

The world's largest countries, China and India, have life expectancies of 72 and 62 respectively. The discrepancy is expected to have a significant economic impact in coming years and China will have to divert resources from its otherwise booming economy to address the needs of its rapidly aging population.

Slowing population growth

The report also reveals slowing world population growth. Global birth rates fell to the lowest level in recorded history with the average woman in the developing world having 2.9 children, down from an average of nearly 6 babies in the 1970s. UN demographers predict that fertility in most of the developing world will fall below the replacement level (2.1 children per woman) before the end of the 21st century. Factors leading to falling birth rates include increased level education for women, the use of contraceptives, and urbanization.

Of the 192 countries surveyed by the WHO, 66 have fertility rates at or below replacement level. Of these about 20 are considered "less developed" countries and the UN projects that by 2050, 75 percent of less developed countries will be experiencing below-replacement fertility. China, which implemented a strict one-child per family policy in 1979, has the largest drop in fertility rates with an average of 4.3 fewer children per woman since 1970.

While around one-third of countries now have birthrates below replacement level, the lowest fertility rates are in the world's 44 most developed countries, which account for 19 per cent of the world population. All except Albania have fertility below replacement level and 15, mostly located in Southern and Eastern Europe, have reached levels of fertility unprecedented in human history (below 1.3 children per woman). Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, and most of the successor States of the former USSR are expected to have significantly lower populations by 2050. In contrast, the United States -- which has the highest fertility rate of rich countries -- is projected to be the seventh largest contributor to world population growth over the next five decades.

Because of its low and declining rate of population growth, the population of developed countries as a whole is expected to remain virtually unchanged between 2005 and 2050, at about 1.2 billion. In contrast, the population of the 50 least developed countries is projected to more than double, passing from 0.8 billion in 2005 to 1.7 billion in 2050. Some of these country are expected to experience very rapid population growth: between 2005 and 2050, the population is projected to at least triple in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Uganda. Growth in the rest of the developing world is also projected to be robust, though less rapid, with its population rising from 4.5 billion to 6.1 billion between 2005 and 2050.

Poor countries:

The world is heading for wildly uneven population swings in the next 45 years, with many rich countries "downsizing" during a period in which almost all developing nations will grow at breakneck speed, according to a comprehensive report by leading US demographers released yesterday.

They predict that at least an extra 1,000 million will be living in the world's poorest African countries by 2050. There will be an extra 120 million more Americans, and India will leapfrog China to become the world's most populous country. One in six people in western Europe will be over the age of 65 by 2050.

But the populations of some countries will shrink. Based on a number of factors, including analysis of birth and death rates, Bulgaria is expected to lose almost 40 per cent of its population.

Britain is expected to grow faster than any other major European country. Within 20 years, the authors expect it to have four million more people, at which point its growth is expected to tail off, adding only a further 1.5 million in the next 25 years to eventually reach 65 million. By then it will have overtaken France as Europe's second or third largest country, depending whether Russia is classed to be in Europe or partly in Asia.

The changes, considered inevitable given present trends, will transform geo-politics and fundamentally affect the world's economies, people's lifestyles and global resources, suggest demographers with the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau.

Countries such as Nigeria and Japan, which today have similar sized populations of about 130 million people, could be unrecognisable by 2050, say the authors. By then, Nigeria is expected to have more than doubled its numbers to more than 300 million people. But Japan, which has only 14% of its current population under 15, may have shrunk to roughly 100 million people.

Among the major industrialised nations, only the US will experience what the authors call "significant" growth. It is expected to have reached a population of 420 million by 2050, an increase of 43%. But Europe is expected to have 60 million fewer people than today and some countries could lose more than a third of their populations.

Eastern Europe is leading the world's down shifters. Bulgaria is expected to return to pre-1914 population levels, losing 38% of its people, while Romania could have 27% fewer and Russia 25 million fewer people. Germany and Italy are expected to shrink by about 10%.

The projections are based on detailed analysis of infant mortality rates, age structure, population growth, life expectancy, incomes, and fertility rates. They also take into account the numbers of women using contraception and Aids/HIV rates, but do not allow for environmental factors.

Climate change and ongoing land degradation are widely expected to encourage further widespread movements of people and pressure for migration away from rural areas towards cities and richer countries.

The population changes are causing growing alarm among experts, who believe sustained growth in developing countries can only be managed with economic help from rich countries. "World population is going to grow massively in some of the most vulnerable countries in the world. We have to ask how rich countries are going to help", said Kirstyen Sherk, of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The former World Bank economist Herman Daly believes globalisation and the uncontrolled migration of cheap labour could put potentially catastrophic pressures on local communities and national economies. "The sheer number of people on Earth is now much larger than ever before in history. Some experts question whether Earth can even carry today's population at a 'moderately comfortable' standard for the long term, let alone 3 billion more".

The report, based on countries' own statistics, confirms trends identified earlier by the UN, and more recently by the US Population census report. While the world's few developed countries are expected to grow about 4% to over 1.2 billion, population in developing countries could surge by 55% to more than 8 billion.

Africa and Asia will inevitably be transformed. Western Asian nations are expected to gain about 186 million people by 2050 and sub-Saharan African countries more than one billion people. By 2050, India will be the largest country in the world, having long passed China.

How some countries will cope with the changes is debatable. Bangladesh, one of the poorest, most crowded and disaster-prone countries, may have doubled numbers to more than 280 million.

Overall, says the report, world population is growing by about 70 million people a year, and will likely reach 9.3 billion by mid-century from 6.3 billion today.

However, a separate report, to be published soon by the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, will argue that fertility rates in poor countries could drop if there is a world fuel crisis. The thinktank says people usually have as many children as they think they can afford, and the motivation to have fewer comes from anticipating hard times ahead.

Increases in food production per hectare, it will sa