Population Implosion

In the 1960s people like Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich were predicting world wide starvation, war, and chaos before the turn of the century due to exploding global population. Largely because of technological advances in agricultural production it didn't happen.

Now demographers are forecasting that the world's population is likely to implode over the next two centuries and that this decline will make the world a very different place. Reuters has a fascinating story about this projected crash. You should read the whole piece, but here are some excerpts:

If the world follows the demographic habits of Europe -- and that's a big if -- by the year 2200 it could be home to a population of less than half its current level, living in housing built for almost three times that number.

With the global population estimated to pass 7 billion on October 31, many of policymakers' short-term worries revolve around providing resources for the additional 2-3 billion people expected to be born in the next half-century.

Numbers of this magnitude inevitably conjure up terrifying visions of shortage and chaos. But in fact improvements in food production and technology have allowed population growth to continue unimpeded and relatively smoothly, and the real potential nightmare is of a rapidly aging population, combined with collapsing birthrates in both rich and poor states.

Many demographers and long-term planners say the challenge for the next century will be less dealing with growing numbers of people and more managing the much larger population of aged and perhaps dependent people while finding new strategies to deliver prosperity, jobs and essential services.

The trend has already contributed to the current global financial crisis by driving up health and social care bills and perhaps also undermining productivity. But while politicians tie themselves in knots over short-term worries, experts say there is not enough discussion of longer-term demographic challenges.

If birthrates fall to the same level as those of Shanghai, at around 0.8 per couple, then by the early 22nd century population would be falling so fast that it would drop from the 9 billion expected to inhabit the planet by 2070 to under a billion by 2150, a span of only 80 years.

If birthrates were closer to the European Union average of 1.5 then population would fall below 5 billion around 2140 and 3 billion by 2200. In contrast, maintaining the current rate of 2.5 would see it top 15 billion by 2100.

If life expectancies also fall these rates of decline would all be accelerated. These really are startling statistics.

Declines like these would place extraordinary pressure on countries which try to provide care for their elderly. Such care is possible when the population distribution is pyramidal with lots of young workers supporting a relative few elderly, but should the pyramid be inverted, as the above projections suggest they may be, it's hard to see how it could be sustained.

By 2030, more than a third of the population in a number of Western states as well as some Asian economies, such as Japan and Korea, will be aged over 65.

Many developing states, most notably China with its one-child policy but also a growing number of other nations, will follow suit -- often without the financial resources to help pay for the cost of medical and nursing care.

"It's the seminal issue of our time," says Michael Hodin, executive director of the New York-based Global Coalition on Aging and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"The numbers are stunning. The exact projections vary but it doesn't really matter because they are all going in the same direction."

Currently, fertility is still high in many of the world's poorer countries and the aging nations can import workers from them to sustain their elderly populations but even this expediency, which poses significant dangers to the cultural survival of the importing nation, won't last. The pool of available labor in poorer countries is also expected to eventually diminish.

Exact predictions vary, but most projections suggest the global population will peak at around 9 billion around 2070 and then start to fall, perhaps very fast.

In other words, by the end of this century the world's population could be in a rapid descent which would make the world poorer, resources more scarce, and violence more prevalent.

Or not. Fertility rates could buck current trends and remain at 2.5 children per couple worldwide. The future, after all, is a difficult thing to predict. Just ask Paul Ehrlich.