>X-Persona: <JPM>
>Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>X-Authentication-Warning: emily.eou.edu: listserv set sender to owner-wfsf-l using -f
>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 06:29:29 -0300 (ADT)
>From: Michael Gurstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>We ar interested in reprinting the article on dmeographic fatigue in the December issue of the WFSF Futures Bulletin. Whom do we contact for reprint permission?
I take it the author of this article was Jay Hanson?
Please reply before Nov. 20.
Thank you.
Jean Manayon
Administrative and Editorial Officer
To: "'wfsf list'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments (fwd)
>Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>-----------------------
>From: Jay Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: futurework <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments
>
>HOLD FOR RELEASE
>06:00 PM EDT
>Saturday, September 26, 1998
>
>Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments
>
>Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several
>decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue, researchers at the
>Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental research
>organization, announced today.
>
>Countries struggling with the simultaneous challenge of educating
>growing numbers of children, creating jobs for swelling ranks of young
>job seekers, and dealing with the environmental effects of population
>growth, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and falling water tables,
>are stretched to the limit. When a major new threat arises-such as AIDS
>or aquifer depletion-governments often cannot cope.
>
>Problems routinely managed in industrial societies are becoming
>full-scale humanitarian crises in many developing ones. As a result,
>some developing countries with rapidly growing populations are headed
>for population stability in a matter of years, not because of falling
>birth rates, but because of rapidly rising death rates.
>
>"This reversal in the death rate trend marks a tragic new development in
>world demography," said Lester Brown, President of Worldwatch and
>co-author with Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil of Beyond Malthus: Sixteen
>Dimensions of the Population Problem. In the absence of a concerted
>effort by national governments and the international community to
>quickly shift to smaller families, events in many countries could spiral
>out of control, leading to spreading political instability and economic
>decline, concludes the study funded by the David and Lucile Packard
>Foundation.
>
>Marking the bicentennial of Thomas Malthus' legendary essay on the
>tendency for population to grow more rapidly than the food supply, this
>study chronicles the stakes in another half-century of massive
>population growth. The United Nations projects world population to grow
>from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.4 billion in 2050, with all of the
>additional 3.3 billion coming in the developing countries. However, this
>study raises doubts as to whether these projections will materialize.
>
>Today, two centuries after Malthus, we find ourselves in a
>demographically divided world, one where national projections of
>population growth vary more widely than at any time in history. In some
>countries, population has stabilized or is declining; but in others,
>population is projected to double or even triple before stabilizing.
>
>In 32 countries, containing 14 percent of world population, population
>growth has stopped. By contrast, Ethiopia's population of 62 million is
>projected to more than triple to 213 million in 2050. Pakistan will go
>from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing the U.S. population before
>2050. Nigeria, meanwhile, is projected to go from 122 million today to
>339 million, giving it more people in 2050 than there were in all of
>Africa in 1950. The largest absolute increase is anticipated for India,
>which is projected to add another 600 million by 2050, thus overtaking
>China as the most populous country.
>
>To understand these widely varying population growth rates among
>countries, demographers use a three-stage model of how these rates
>change over time as modernization proceeds. In the first stage, there
>are high birth and high death rates, resulting in little or no
>population growth. In the second stage, as modernization begins, death
>rates fall while birth rates remain high, leading to rapid growth. In
>the third stage, birth rates fall to a low level, balancing low death
>rates and again leading to population stability, offering greater
>possibilities for comfort and dignity than in stage one. It is assumed
>that countries will move gradually from stage one to stage three. Today
>there are no countries in stage one; all are either in stage two or
>stage three. However, this analysis concludes that instead of
>progressing to stage three as expected, some countries are in fact
>falling back into stage one as the historic fall in death rates is
>reversed, leading the world into a new demographic era.
>
>After several decades of rapid population growth, many societies are
>showing signs of demographic fatigue, a result of the struggle to deal
>with the multiple stresses caused by high fertility. As recent
>experience with AIDS in Africa shows, some countries in stage two are
>simply overwhelmed when a new threat appears. While industrial countries
>have held HIV infection rates among their adult populations under
>1percent or less, a 1998 World Health Organization survey reports that
>in Zimbabwe, for example, 26 percent of the adult population is HIV
>positive. In Botswana it is 25 percent, Zambia 20 percent, Namibia 19
>percent, and Swaziland 18 percent.
>
>Barring a miracle, these societies will lose one fifth or more of their
>adult population within the next decade from AIDS alone. These adult
>deaths, the deaths of infants infected with the virus, and high
>mortality among the millions of AIDS orphans, along with the usual
>deaths, will bring population growth to a halt or even into decline.
>With these high mortality trends, more reminiscent of the Dark Ages than
>the bright new millennium so many had hoped for, these countries are
>falling back to stage one.
>
>New diseases are not the only threat to demographically fatigued stage
>two countries. Because population growth affects so many dimensions of a
>society, any of several different stresses can force a country back into
>stage one.
>
>For example, in many developing countries food supplies are threatened
>by aquifer depletion. A forthcoming study by the International Water
>Management Institute (IWMI) reports that in India, a country heavily
>dependent on irrigation, recent growth in food production and population
>has been based partly on the unsustainable use of water. Nationwide,
>withdrawals of underground water are at least double the rate of
>recharge and water tables are falling by 1 to 3 meters per year. IWMI
>authors estimate that as India's aquifers are depleted, its grain
>harvest could fall by as much as one fifth.
>
>In a country where food and population are precariously balanced and
>which is adding 18 million people per year, such a huge drop in food
>output could create economic chaos.
>
>"The question is not whether population growth will slow in the
>developing countries," said Brown, "but whether it will slow because
>societies quickly shift to smaller families or because ecological
>collapse and social disintegration cause death rates to rise. The
>challenge for national governments is to assess their land and water
>resources, determine how many people they will support at the desired
>level of consumption, and then formulate a population policy to reach
>that goal."
>
>At the international level, the challenge is to quickly expand
>international family planning assistance, so that the millions of
>couples who want to limit family size but lack access to family planning
>services will be able to do so. Beyond this aid, investing in the
>education of young people in the third world, especially females, is a
>key to shifting to smaller families. In every society where data are
>available, the more education women have the fewer children they bear.
>
>As the world enters the new millennium, it faces many challenges, but
>perhaps none so important-or as urgent-as the need to quickly slow
>population growth.
>
>FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
>
>Lester Brown, Author, President Worldwatch Institute, (202) 452-1999
>Brian Halweil, Co-Author, Staff Researcher, (202) 452-1992 ext. 538
>Mary Caron, Press Officer, (202) 452-1992 ext. 527
>
>e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>or check our website www.worldwatch.org
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>NPG Population-News Listserve http://www.npg.org
>To unsubscribe: send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>with the message text: unsubscribe population-news
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
Jean Lee P. Manayon
Department of Economics/Department of Mass Communications
University of St. La Salle
P. O. Box 249, La Salle Ave.
6100 Bacolod City, Neg. Occ., Philippines
Tel. No. c/o (63)-(034)-7084219; (63)-(034)-81080
Fax No. c/o (63)-(034)435-3857
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
