Associated
Press, October 17, 2011
Challenges
loom as world population hits 7 billion
By DAVID CRARY
She's a 40-year-old
mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead
in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and
three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay
required fees.
"I regret
to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe.
"If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."
At Ahmed Kasadha's
prosperous farm in eastern Uganda, it's a different story.
"My father
had 25 children I have only 14 so far, and expect to produce more
in the future," says Kasadha, who has two wives. He considers
a large family a sign of success and a guarantee of support in
his old age.
By the time
Ndageramiwe's ninth child arrives, and any further members of
the Kasadha clan, the world's population will have passed a momentous
milestone. As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund,
there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.
In Western
Europe, Japan and Russia, it will be an ironic milestone amid
worries about low birthrates and aging populations. In China and
India, the two most populous nations, it's an occasion to reassess
policies that have already slowed once-rapid growth.
But in Burundi,
Uganda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic news
is mostly sobering as the region staggers under the double burden
of the world's highest birthrates and deepest poverty. The regional
population of nearly 900 million could reach 2 billion in 40 years
at current rates, accounting for about half of the projected global
population growth over that span.
"Most
of that growth will be in Africa's cities, and in those cities
it will almost all be in slums where living conditions are horrible,"
said John Bongaarts of the Population Council, a New York-based
research organization.
Is catastrophe
inevitable? Not necessarily. But experts say most of Africa and
other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan
will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for
their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives.
"Extreme
poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other,"
says Lester Brown, the environmental analyst who heads the Earth
Policy Institute in Washington. "The challenge is to intervene
in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families."
Without such
intervention, Brown says, food and water shortages could fuel
political destabilization in developing regions.
"There's
quite a bit of land that could produce food if we had the water
to go with it," he said. "It's water that's becoming
the real constraint."
The International
Water Management Institute shares these concerns, predicting that
by 2025 about 1.8 billion people will live in places suffering
from severe water scarcity.
According
to demographers, the world's population didn't reach 1 billion
until 1804, and it took 123 years to hit the 2 billion mark in
1927. Then the pace accelerated 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in
1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998.
Looking ahead,
the U.N. projects that the world population will reach 8 billion
by 2025, 10 billion by 2083. But the numbers could be much higher
or lower, depending on such factors as access to birth control,
infant mortality rates and average life expectancy which has risen
from 48 years in 1950 to 69 years today.
"Overall,
this is not a cause for alarm the world has absorbed big gains
since 1950," said Bongaarts, a vice president of the Population
Council. But he cautioned that strains are intensifying: rising
energy and food prices, environmental stresses, more than 900
million people undernourished.
"For
the rich, it's totally manageable," Bongaarts said. "It's
the poor, everywhere, who will be hurt the most."
The executive
director of the U.N. Population Fund, former Nigerian health minister
Babatunde Osotimehin, describes the 7 billion milestone as a call
to action especially in the realm of enabling adolescent girls
to stay in school and empowering women to control the number of
children they have.
"It's
an opportunity to bring the issues of population, women's rights
and family planning back to center stage," he said in an
interview. "There are 215 million women worldwide who need
family planning and don't get it. If we can change that, and these
women can take charge of their lives, we'll have a better world."
But as Osotimehin
noted, population-related challenges vary dramatically around
the world. Associated Press reporters on four continents examined
some of most distinctive examples:
THE ASIAN
GIANTS
It's 6 p.m.
in Mumbai, India's financial hub, and millions of workers swarm
out of their offices, headed to railway stations for a ride home.
Every few minutes, as a train enters the station, the crowd surges
forward.
For nearly
7 million commuters who ride the overtaxed suburban rail network
each work day, every ride is a scramble. Each car is jam-packed;
sometimes, riders die when they lose their foothold while clinging
to the doors.
Across India,
the teeming slums, congested streets, and crowded trains and trams
are testimony to the country's burgeoning population. Already
the second most populous country, with 1.2 billion people, India
is expected to overtake China around 2030 when its population
soars to an estimated 1.6 billion.
But even as
the numbers increase, the pace of the growth has slowed. Demographers
say India's fertility rate now 2.6 children per woman should fall
to 2.1 by 2025 and to 1.8 by 2035.
More than
half of India's population is under 25, and some policy planners
say this so-called "youth dividend" could fuel a productive
surge over the next few decades. But population experts caution
that the dividend could prove to be a liability without vast social
investments.
"If the
young population remains uneducated, unskilled and unemployable,
then that dividend would be wasted," says Shereen Jejeebhoy,
a Population Council demographer in New Delhi.
Population
experts also worry about a growing gender gap, stemming largely
from Indian families' preference for sons. A surge in sex-selection
tests, resulting in abortion of female fetuses, has skewed the
ratio, with the latest census showing 914 girls under age 6 for
every 1,000 boys.
Family planning
is a sensitive issue. In the 35 years since one government was
toppled for pursuing an aggressive population control program,
subsequent leaders have been reluctant to follow suit.
For now, China
remains the most populous nation, with 1.34 billion people. In
the past decade it added 73.9 million, more than the population
of France or Thailand.
Nonetheless,
its growth has slowed dramatically and the population is projected
to start shrinking in 2027. By 2050, according to some demographers,
it will be smaller than it is today.
"It's
like a train on the track that's still moving but the engine is
already off," says Gu Baochang, a professor of demography
at Beijing's Renmin University.
In the 1970s,
Chinese women had five to six children each on average. Today
China has a fertility rate the number of children the average
woman is expected to have in her lifetime of around 1.5, well
below the 2.1 replacement rate that demographers say is needed
to keep populations stable in developed countries.
Three decades
of strict family planning rules that limit urban families to one
child and rural families to two helped China achieve a rapid decline
in fertility but the policy has brought problems as well.
Before long,
there will be too few young Chinese people to easily support a
massive elderly population.
Also, as with
India, there's a gender gap. The United Nations says there are
43 million "missing girls" in China because parents
restricted to small families often favored sons and aborted girls
after learning their unborn babies' gender through sonograms.
"China
is always so proud of how quickly we brought down fertility from
high to low, and how many births were avoided but I think we did
it too quickly and reduced it to too low a level," says Gu.
"I wish that India can learn this: `Don't make it too quick.'"
WESTERN
EUROPE AND THE U.S.
Spain used
to give parents 2,500 euros (more than $3,000) for every newborn
child to encourage families to reverse the country's low birth
rate. But the checks stopped coming with Spain's austerity measures,
raising the question of who will pay the bills to support the
elderly in the years ahead.
It's a question
bedeviling many European countries which have grappled for years
over how to cope with shrinking birth rates and aging populations
and are now faced with a financial crisis that has forced some
to cut back on family-friendly government incentives.
Spain and
Italy, both forced to enact painful austerity measures in a bid
to narrow budget deficits, are battling common problems: Women
have chosen to have their first child at a later age, and the
difficulties of finding jobs and affordable housing are discouraging
some couples from having any children at all.
In 2010, for
the fourth consecutive year, more Italians died than were born,
according to the national statistics agency. Italy's population
nonetheless grew slightly to 60.6 million due to immigration,
which is a highly charged issue across Europe.
Italy's youth
minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier this year that measures to
reverse the birth rate require "millions in investment"
but that the resources aren't available.
Unlike many
countries in Europe, France's population is growing slightly but
steadily every year. It has one of the highest birth rates in
the European Union with around 2 children per woman.
One reason
is immigration to France by Africans with large-family traditions,
but it's also due to family-friendly legislation. The government
offers public preschools, subsidies to all families that have
more than one child, generous maternity leave, and tax exemptions
for employers of nannies.
Like France,
the United States has one of the highest population growth rates
among industrialized nations. Its fertility rate is just below
the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, but its population
has been increasing by almost 1 percent annually due to immigration.
With 312 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country
after China and India.
AFRICA
Lagos, Nigeria,
is expected to overtake Cairo soon as Africa's largest city. Private
water vendors there do a brisk business in the many neighborhoods
that otherwise lack access to potable water.
The drone
of generators is omnipresent, at offices and markets, in neighborhoods
rich and poor, because the power grid doesn't produce enough power.
Periodic blackouts extend for hours, days, sometimes weeks.
Such is daily
life in Nigeria's commercial capital, where the population is
estimated at 15 million and growing at 6 percent or more each
year. Problems with traffic congestion, sanitation and water supplies
are staggering; a recent article in UN-Habitat said two-thirds
of the residents live in poverty.
The rest of
Nigeria isn't growing as fast estimates of its growth rate range
from 2 percent to 3.2 percent. But it's already Africa's most
populous country with more than 160 million people.
Ndyanabangi
Bannet, the U.N. Population Fund's deputy representative in Nigeria,
notes that 60 percent of the population is under 30 and needs
to be accommodated with education, training and health care.
"It is
a plus if it is taken advantage of," he said of Nigeria's
youth. "But if it is not harnessed, it can be a challenge,
because imagine what hordes of unemployed young people can do."
In Uganda,
another fast-growing country, President Yoweri Museveni used to
be disdainful of population control and urged Ugandans, especially
in rural areas, to continue having large families.
Recently,
the government has conceded that its 3.2 population growth rate
must be curbed because the economy can't keep pace. Earlier this
year, anti-government protests by unemployed youths and other
aggrieved Ugandans flared in several communities, and nine marchers
were killed in confrontations with police.
"The
government has been convinced that unless it invests in reproductive
health, Uganda is destined to a crisis," says Hannington
Burunde of the Uganda Population Secretariat.
Among those
who are struggling is John Baliruno, 45, of Mpigi in central Uganda,
a father of nine.
"I never
intended to have such a big number," he said. "I with
my wife had no knowledge of family planning and ended up producing
one child after another. Now I cannot properly feed them."
Looking ahead,
he's pessimistic.
"The
environment is being destroyed by the growing population. Trees
are being cut down in big numbers and even now we can't get enough
firewood to cook food," he said. "In the near future,
we will starve."
Another of
the fastest-growing countries is Burundi. With roughly 8.6 million
people, it's the second most densely populated African country
after neighboring Rwanda.
Omer Ndayishimiye,
head of Burundi's Population Department, said continued high growth
coincides with dwindling natural resources. Land suitable for
farming will decline, and poverty will be rampant, he said, noting
that 90 percent of the population live in rural areas and rely
on farming to survive.
The government
has been trying to raise awareness about the demographic challenges
among the clergy, civic leaders and the general public.
"We are
suggesting couples to go to health clinics to get taught different
birth control methods," Ndayishimiye said. "But we are
facing some barriers ... Many Burundians still see children as
source of wealth."
At her modest
house in Gishubi, Godelive Ndageramiwe ponders the changes that
have made her regret her large family.
"Children
were a good labor force in the past when there was enough space
to cultivate," she said. "Today I can't even feed my
family properly. My kids just spend days doing nothing."
After her
fourth child, she began to worry how her family could be cared
for.
"But
my husband was against birth control and wanted as many children
as possible," she said. "It was delicate because he
could marry another wife.
"My friends
advised me to go to a nearby clinic, but I was told I must come
with my husband. Now I have laid the issue in the hands of God."
David Crary
reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alexa Oleson
in Beijing, Nirmala George in New Delhi, Angela Charlton in Paris,
Daniel Woolls in Madrid, Victor Simpson in Rome, Onesime Niyungeko
in Bujumbura, Burundi; Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria, and Godfrey
Olukya in Kampala, Uganda, also contributed to this report.
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