World Population
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300311 |
| Author | Michael Shenstone |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MICHAEL
SHENSTONE
World
population
Why
we
should
pay
heed
BY
1999,
FIVE
YEARS
WILL
HAVE
PASSED
SINCE
the
huge
International
Conference
on
Population
and
Development
(ICPD)
in
Cairo.
In
the
meantime,
the
key
population
issues,
which
remain
as
serious
as
ever,
if
not
more
so,
have
receded
from public
attention.
To
bring them
to
the
forefront
once
again,
the
United
Nations, with
support
from
Canada
and
others,
is
organizing
a
series
of
events
over
the
coming
year,
includ-
ing
round
tables,
technical
meetings,
and
a
major
international
forum
in
Amsterdam
in
February
1999,
on
various
ICPD
themes.
The
'ICPD
+
5'
process,
as
it
has
been
dubbed,
will
culminate
in
a
three-day
Special
Session
of
the
United
Nations
General
Assembly
in
June
1999.
It
is
hoped
that
this article
may help
to
indicate
what
is
at
stake, for,
in the
field
of
population,
there
are
major long-term
implications
for
interna-
tional
relations
and
for
Canadian
policy.
GLOBAL
TRENDS
The brute
figures
are
awesome
but
contain
a glimmer
of
improvement.
There
are
now
well
over
5.9
billion
people
in
the
world,
and
by some
Michael
Shenstone,
a
retired
Canadian
diplomat,
is
now
particularly
concerned
with
internation-
al
population
and
migration
questions
and
chairs
planningfor a
new
Canadian
NGO
on
the sub-
ject
(see
note
10). This
article
draws
on
and
updates
portions
ofa
monograph
on
World
Population
Growth
and
Movement:
Towards
the
21st
Century
which
he
wrotefor
the
Department
of
Foreign
Affairs
and
International
Trade
(DFAIT)
and
Citizenship
and
Immigration
Canada.
Copies
availablefrom
DFAIT
'Infocentre,
'tel
1-800-276-8376
or
1-613-996-9709,
quoting
SP80A.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
1998
World
population
time
next
year
there
will
be
6
billion.
The
annual
increase
peaked
at
87
million
in
1987
and
is
now
thought
to
be
rather
more
than
80
mil-
lion.
Estimated
rates
of
population
growth
and
of
total
fertility
(TFR)'
have
dropped
slightly
in
recent
years
for
several
reasons: faster
than
expected
downward
fertility trends
(a
world
average
TFR
of
3.4
in
1991
is
now
perhaps
3.0),
most
markedly
in
China
with
its
heavy sta-
tistical
weight,
but
also in
south
Asia
and
in
the
still
towering
rates
of
subsaharan
Africa;
lower
birthrates
and
life
expectancy
in
much
of
eastern
Europe
and
the
ex-USSR;
higher
mortality
in
countries
affect-
ed
by
wars
or
the
spread
of
AIDS;
and
better
data
in
some African
countries.
Yet
even
as
overall
fertility
continues
its
gradual
decline,
world
pop-
ulation
will
go
on growing
at
nearly
its
present
numerical
rate
for
sev-
eral
more
years,
mostly
because
of
the
high
proportion
of
young
peo-
ple in
developing
countries.
After
that,
the
rate
will
taper
off
only
grad-
ually.
This
phenomenon,
which
the
experts
call
'population
momen-
tum,'
will
probably
account
for almost
two-thirds
of
future
growth. In
the
entirely
implausible
event
that
world
TFR
fell
to the
2.1
replace-
ment
level
tomorrow,
world
population
would
still increase
to
8.4
bil-
lion
by
2050
and
9.4
billion
by
2150.
In
the
equally implausible
event
that
TFR
were
to
stay
as
high
as
it
is
now,
by
2050
there
would
be
14.9
billion
people
and
by
2150
a
fantastic
296 billion.
Predictions
get
vaguer
the
further
from
the
present
one
gets,
and
one
is
rightly
warned
that
each
depends
on
an array
of
assumptions.
For
the
future world
population,
the United Nations
puts
out
a
preferred
'medium
variant'
with
'high'
and
'low'
variants
on
either
side.
Table
1
World
population
predications
Variants
2015
2050
High
7.55 billion
11.1
billion
Medium 7.28
billion 9.36
billion
Low
7.01
billion
7.7
billion
1
The
'Total
Fertility
Rate'
(TFR)
is
the
average
number
of
children
born
to
a
woman
in
her
reproductive
lifetime.
A TFR
of
2.1
maintained over
many
years
would
theoreti-
cally
lead
to
a
stable
population.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
1998
SSS
To continue reading
Request your trial