Population

D

Population Projections

Most of the potential parents of the next two decades have already been born. Population projections over this interval can, therefore, be made with reasonable confidence, barring catastrophic changes. Beyond two decades, however, uncertainties about demographic magnitudes and other characteristics of human societies build up rapidly, making any projections somewhat speculative.

Projections issued in 2000 show the world population increasing from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 7.9 billion in 2025 and 9.3 billion in 2050. “High” and “low” projections for 2025 are 8.4 billion and 7.5 billion respectively. The average world birth rate is projected to decline from the 1990 level of 26 per 1,000 to 22 per 1,000 at the end of the century and to 17.6 per 1,000 in 2025 (corresponding to a fall in TFR from 3.3 in 1990 to 2.4 in 2025). Because of the expanding share of the population at high-mortality ages, the average world death rate is expected to decline only slightly; from 9 (per 1,000) in 1990 to 8.4 in 2025. Average world life expectancy, however, is projected to rise from 65 years in 1990 to 71.3 years in 2025.

Wide variations in population growth will undoubtedly persist. In the developed world, population growth will continue to be very low and in some nations will even decline. Western Europe as a whole is projected to have a declining population after 2000. U.S. Census Bureau projections, assuming middle fertility and mortality levels, show U.S. population increasing from 250 million in 1990 to 349 million in 2025 and 420 million in 2050. Thereafter, growth would be virtually zero.

The UN expects the less-developed countries to have steadily falling rates of population growth. For the less-developed world as a whole, the 1990 growth rate of 2.0 percent per year is projected to be cut in half by 2025. Africa will remain the region with the highest growth rate. In 1990 this rate was 3.1 percent; in 2025 it is projected to be about 2.0 percent. Africa's population would almost triple, from 629 million in 1990 to 1.36 billion in 2025, and then continue growing at a rate that would almost double the population size in another 35 years.

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V

Population Policies

Government population policies seek to contribute to national development and welfare goals through measures that, directly or indirectly, aim to influence demographic processes—in particular, fertility and migration. Examples include statutory minimum ages for marriage, programs to promote the use of contraception, and controls on immigration. (When such policies are adopted for other than demographic reasons, they can be termed implicit policies.)

A

Population Policy in the United States

The early immigrants to North America found a vast continent with a relatively small indigenous population. Overcrowding was incomprehensible because of the expanse of land to the west.

In the mid-20th century, as the rest of the world awakened to the potential crisis brought on by unchecked population growth, the U.S. government examined the possible impact of overpopulation in the nation. The President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future began a two-year study in 1970. Submitted to President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, it welcomed the prospect of zero population growth in the U.S., but did not propose that the government take strong measures to attain it. The commission did, however, advocate education on family planning and widely available access to contraception and abortion services. Primarily because of this, the president rejected the commission's recommendations.

Since then, U.S. fertility has fallen below replacement level. This is due in part to the implicit policies that, taken together, make bearing and raising children very costly to parents. Future policy concerns may reflect worry over population aging and the demographic aspects of funding social security. In addition, the conflicting interests involved in determining numbers and characteristics of migrants is likely to keep immigration policy on the political agenda.

B

Population Policies in Developed Nations

European countries did not address the issue of a national population policy until the 20th century. Subsidies were granted to expanding families by such disparate nations as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the USSR. The Italian Fascists in the 1920s and the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany during the 1930s made population growth an essential part of their doctrines.

Japan, with an economy comparable to those of the European nations, was the first developed country in modern times to initiate a birth-control program. In 1948 the Japanese government formally instituted a policy using both contraception and abortion to limit family size.

European pronatalist policies were conspicuously unsuccessful in the 1930s, and their milder variations over the past few decades (in, for example, France and many Eastern European nations) have apparently done little to slow a continuing fertility decline. Government control of migration is more straightforward. Short-term migration tied to labor demands (guest workers) has been a common practice in Western Europe, allowing the various nations the flexibility to curtail migration during economic recessions.

C

Population Policies in the Third World

In 1952 India took the lead among developing nations in adopting an official policy to slow its population growth. India's stated purpose was to facilitate social and economic development by reducing the burden of a young and rapidly growing population. Surveys to ascertain contraceptive knowledge, attitude, and practice showed a high proportion of couples wishing no more children. Few, however, practiced efficient contraception. Family-planning programs were seen as a way to satisfy a desire for contraception by a large segment of the population and also to confer health benefits from spacing and limiting births.

Asia's lowered growth rate can be attributed mainly to the stringent population policies of China. Although it has a huge population, China has successfully reduced both fertility and mortality. The government has recently been advocating one-child families to lower the nation's growth rate.

By 1979 more than 90 percent of the population in developing countries lived under governments that, in principle at least, supported access to contraceptives by their citizens, based on considerations of health and the right to choose to have children and to space them at desired intervals. Recent evidence indicates that progress toward the objectives of lowered fertility and national growth is being achieved in many nations, in part by government support for family-planning programs.

See also Agriculture; Food Supply, World; Housing.