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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:22
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China's population projections continue to be downwardly revised. The UN Population Division now expects India's population to pass China's by the year 2030, whereas previously we expected this crossover in about 2035. I assume that this means that China's population will begin to fall some 5 or 10 or so years before that time -- 2020 or 2025.
As I've mentioned in the past, population growth pretty directly impacts economic growth in an economy that is going in the right direction. China's population is growing at a 0.65% rate per annum nowadays, but the UN projects it will be shrinking at a 0.35% rate per annum in 2050. Relative to nowadays, that's more or less a 1% per annum drag on China's economy.
This drag should have a pretty huge impact on how we view China's rise. In short, it probably won't be as spectacular as some believe. China certainly won't be taking over the world.
From FT...
quote:
India’s population ‘to outstrip China by 2030’
By Mark Turner at the United Nations
Published: February 24 2005 18:02 | Last updated: February 25 2005 00:03
United Nations
According to the UN's latest World Population Prospects, released on Thursday in New York, there will be 1,395m people in India in 2025 and 1,593m in 2050. In China the population will grow to 1,441m by 2025, before dropping to 1,392m in 2050. Cheryl Sawyer, a UN demographer, said: “We've been saying for a while that India would cross over China before 2050. But the crossover has been getting earlier and earlier and we now say it will happen before 2030 (not including Hong Kong). This is five years earlier than we said two years ago.
“Based on analysis of the newest censuses, we're estimating lower fertility for China, while India's is slightly higher than we estimated in the past.”
In 2050, the world's population is expected to be 9.1bn people, up from 6.5bn now, with almost all the growth in developing countries. The numbers vary significantly according to differing scenarios and become less certain the further they project into the future. Demographic shifts depend on fertility, mortality and migration, which can be influenced by policy and social and economic trends.
The UN's population division said it did not doubt that India and China would exchange places, mainly because of differences in fertility. The only question was exactly when. China now has a fertility rate of 1.7 children per woman (though rising to 1.85), while India's is just above three.
Thomas Buettner, the chief of the UN division's estimates and projection section, said China's changing population was due to “modernisation and uprooting people from traditional lifestyles into the modern economy”, where “people have other opportunities that compete with having large families, like consumerism, travel and education”.
He said it was also due to a rigid population policy, although Chinese officials had started thinking about relaxing that policy because of concern about rapid ageing of the population. Europe's population, which recently underwent a reversal in growth, is also on a downward trend. According to a medium variant, it will drop from 728m now to 653m in 2050. That figure (which incorporates Russia but not Turkey) includes falls in Italy and Germany, although France and the UK will grow.
Japan's population declines from 128m to 112m, according to the same variant. “The population of developed countries as a whole is expected to remain virtually unchanged between 2005 and 2050, at about 1.2bn,” the report says. “In contrast, the population of the 50 least-developed countries is projected to more than double.”
The population of India will overtake that of China before 2030, five years earlier than expected, a United Nations population report predicts. |
Last edited by DanS on 26-02-2005 at 00:24
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:22
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
The illiterate peasants contribute to society too. The US was built with such rough material. |
Don't be too sure about that. The countryside suffers from widespread un- and underemployment, the opposite of the situation in the US during its days of frontier expansion.
I'm sorry, but IMO anyone who thinks China could in some way - any way - benefit from having more people needs a better understanding of the immensity the crushing weight of so many people sucking up a limited amount of natural resources, the resulting staggering levels of pollution in many areas, the galloping desertification, the choking population density, etc.
The implications for the world's environment are scary. One that really worries me these days are the plans for about 70 more conventional nucelar reactors. As is well known, Chinese typically place very little value on safety, especially in any situation in which it comes at the cost (no matter how small) of profit.
I can't recall having met anyone living here in China who felt that it would be in some way be beneficial to have still more people competing for the same amount of jobs, resources, food, living space, water, etc.
Photo: Shanghai subway station at rush hour. Try asking these folks if China would benefit from more people.
 Attachment: metro line 2 rush hour 1.jpg
This has been downloaded 161 time(s).
Last edited by mindseye on 26-02-2005 at 10:06
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DaShi
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The Taste of Japan
Sep 2000
time: 05:22
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Don't be too sure about that. The countryside suffers from widespread un- and underemployment, the opposite of the situation in the US during its days of frontier expansion.
I'm sorry, but IMO anyone who thinks China could in some way - any way - benefit from having more people needs a better understanding of the immensity the crushing weight of so many people sucking up a limited amount of natural resources, the resulting staggering levels of pollution in many areas, the galloping desertification, the choking population density, etc.
The implications for the world's environment are scary. One that really worries me these days are the plans for about 70 more conventional nucelar reactors. As is well known, Chinese typically place very little value on safety, especially in any situation in which it comes at the cost (no matter how small) of profit.
I can't recall having met anyone living here in China who felt that it would be in some way be beneficial to have still more people competing for the same amount of jobs, resources, food, living space, water, etc.
Photo: Shanghai subway station at rush hour. Try asking these folks if China would benefit from more people. |
Indeed, China's pop. is both a boon and a burden.
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Pyrodrew
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The answer to solve all population problems/concerns... more people...
quote:
U.N.: World Population to Hit 9B in 2050
Fri Feb 25, 8:47 AM ET World - AP Asia
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS - The world's population will increase by 40 percent to 9.1 billion in 2050, but virtually all the growth will be in the developing world, especially in the 50 poorest countries, the U.N. Population Division said.
In a report Thursday, the division said the population in less developed countries is expected to swell from 5.3 billion today to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of richer developed countries will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion.
"It is going to be a strain on the world," said Hania Zlotnik, the division's new director. She said the expected growth will be concentrated in countries that already struggle to provide adequate shelter, health care and education.
The report reconfirmed many trends, including an increasingly aging population in developed countries. But it said immigration would prevent the overall population in richer countries from declining.
The United States is projected to be the major net recipient of international migrants, 1.1 million annually, with its population increasing from 298 million in 2005 to 394 million in 2050, the report said.
Between 2005 and 2050, population growth in eight countries — India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, the United States, Ethiopia and China — is likely to make up half the world's increase, the report said.
Median fertility is expected to decline from 2.6 children per woman today to slightly over 2 children per woman in 2050.
Zlotnik said India's population will surpass China's in the coming decades because its fertility, currently at 3 children per woman, is higher than China's, estimated at 1.7 children per woman.
In 2000-2005, fertility levels remained above 5 children per woman in 35 of the 148 developing countries, including 30 of the poorest nations. The pace of decline in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was slower than anticipated.
In southern Africa, the region with the highest AIDS (news - web sites) prevalence, life expectancy has fallen from 62 years in 1995 to 48 years in 2000-2005, and is projected to decrease further to 43 years over the next decade before a slow recovery starts, it said.
Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said the new projections should spur more action to stop the spread of HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS and help couples freely determine the size of their families.
"We must take more urgent action to promote access to reproductive health, including family planning, and fight HIV/AIDS to save millions of lives from AIDS and maternal death, as well as to reduce poverty in developing countries," she said in a statement.
In 2002 the Population Division had estimated global population in 2050 of 8.9 billion. |
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:22
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quote:
Don't be too sure about that. The countryside suffers from widespread un- and underemployment, the opposite of the situation in the US during its days of frontier expansion. |
Actually, you're quite wrong about the US experience, but in any event your point is inapposite. Ask yourself why all the people moved in from the countryside in the US, so that now we're a majority urban society. If workers in rural areas were so well employed and compensated, they would have stayed there.
The inapposite part comes because the economic strength of the US is not in its frontiers, but rather in its cities. It doesn't matter much overall to the US economy what happens in Montana. It never has, even during the frontier era.
quote:
I'm sorry, but IMO anyone who thinks China could in some way - any way - benefit from having more people needs a better understanding of the immensity the crushing weight of so many people sucking up a limited amount of natural resources, the resulting staggering levels of pollution in many areas, the galloping desertification, the choking population density, etc. |
The inefficient sucking up of so many natural resources is due to such insane rates of economic growth, not the number of people. If the Chinese government throttled the growth rate back to something more reasonable, Chinese companies could do a better job at picking out the most efficient resource sources.
Last edited by DanS on 26-02-2005 at 22:01
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:22
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The problem with Mexico City is that it's not built to accommodate so many people, not that it has too many people. Even Mexico has plenty of knowledge and resources in order to build cities properly for the number of people living there. They just aren't doing it.
The trap you're falling into is thinking that the amount of resources is finite. In our era, this is decidedly not the case.
Last edited by DanS on 26-02-2005 at 21:59
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Apolyton Time is 00:22. |
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26-02-2005 00:18
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