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The flip-side to reduced infant mortality is typically a population boom (at least this was the case in the 50s and 60s). I'm living in Bangladesh right now whe

by redwood 14y ago

The flip-side to reduced infant mortality is typically a population boom (at least this was the case in the 50s and 60s). I'm living in Bangladesh right now where the country really suffers due to over-crowding born out of that era which means there's not enough agricultural land to work for most people, leaving most people under-employed and impoverished. Of course reduction in infant mortality is good, but it can be coupled with problems later if family planning is not also brought into families at the exact same time. If family planning is delayed by one generation compared with the reduction in infant mortality, a country's population can rise exponentially very quickly which is highly destabilizing. The Vatican and others stand in the way to realizing family planning everywhere...

dereg 14y ago
I think you're mixing up the causal relationship between infant mortality, population growth, and economic growth. High population growth does not necessitate low economic growth. In fact, it's economic growth that tends to determine the rate of population growth, not the other way around.
- yaix 14y ago
  The other way around as well. High population growth causes slow economic growth /per capita/ (because the available income is distributed among more people). In the book "Poor Economics" the authors show how poor parents tent to invest most resources they have in only child's education. All the other children get much less education and therefore only low paying jobs, thus remain poor. Less population growth would have a direct positive economic effect on the society's average level of education. High population growth is also very expensive in terms of public services, you need to build more schools, hospitals, police, etc. All that investment in /quantity/ prevents you from investing it in /quality/.
- redwood 14y ago
  Are you talking about per capita economic growth? Anyway once a non-industrialized population reaches a population saturation point such that more people cannot create more agricultural produce (like here in Bangladesh) there's a squeeze on per capita economic output of the country. Sure the extra labor can now be used to industrialize, in theory. But the problem is without capital to industrialize with (as is the case here) a cycle of poverty can form which gets worse.
- lusr 14y ago
  But isn't the important question whether population growth is remaining below economic growth? And in that sense, it's a perfectly valid concern that an increase in population without an accompanying increase in economic growth is a serious problem. I live in South Africa where unemployment rates are already very significant; an increased population growth rate seems almost certain to make this situation worse.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  It depends. If capital accumulation is an important limiting factor in your country's growth, as it is in most of Africa, then adding more people will tend to increase the overall GDP but decrease the per capita GDP. If you're at the productivity frontier, however, and you're more limited by your ability to figure out how to use more capital (innovation). In this case there is still a small marginal return on having more capital per worker, but every worker is also a source of more innovation so its really hard to say whether adding more people (up to a certain point) will increase or decrease the per capita GDP. Generally speaking, when a country develops to a certain point it gets what's called a demographic dividend[1]. The population has been growing rapidly in the past, so there aren't that many old people to take care of. With wealth people start having less babies, though, so there are also a relatively small number of children to take care of relative to the number of working adults. Countries in this position can, if they manage to avoid messing up, grow very rapidly. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend
yaix 14y ago
Right. Unfortunately, especially in Africa, the --- and --- religions are fighting their war of who can produce more children.
DanBC 14y ago
Countries with an AIDS / HIV rate of 20% don't have to worry so much about a population boom. You need people to work the land. (http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Slideshow/43/Too-Poor-to-Farm http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Slideshow/43/Too-Poor-to-Farm) This is great news - some really simple interventions make dramatic reductions in death rates. Things like "soap and hot water to wash hands" or "boil the stones used to cut the cord" have made a big difference. Still, there's always more that can be done. > The maternal mortality ratio in Ethiopia is 676 for every 100,000 births. This compares to an average of 290 per 100,000 births in developing countries, and 14 per 100,000 in developed countries, (http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95356/ETHIOPIA-Still-too-many-deaths-in-childbirth http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95356/ETHIOPIA-Still-too-many...) And when you've prevented children dying in childbirth you need to ensure distribution of micronutirents. (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201112300839360722/A-young-girl-waits-at-a-flower-sellers-stall-in-Kathmandu-Almost-half-of-Nepalese-children-under http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201112300839360722/A-y...) Diarrhoea is the second biggest killer of children. A cheap course of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) costs about $0.50 us cents; this could save about three quarters of the 1.5 million deaths each year. Recognising the weird fact that coca-cola gets everywhere while ORS doesn't, an aid worker decided to use the powerful distribution networks of commercial companies to distribute ORS. (http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-save-a-life http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-...) He's not doing this through charity or subsidy. He's found a neat gap. > Almost 30 years after British aid worker Simon Berry first pondered the Coca-Cola conundrum while working in Zambia, he is about to turn the puzzle into an opportunity he hopes will drastically reduce child mortality by adopting some of these strategies. And he wants to do so through commerce, rather than charity, or even, in the long term, through subsidy. > Berry has isolated a gap in the market, literally in the spaces between crated Coca-Cola bottles trucked and biked to villages all over the developing world.

by redwood 14y ago

dereg 14y ago

I think you're mixing up the causal relationship between infant mortality, population growth, and economic growth. High population growth does not necessitate low economic growth. In fact, it's economic growth that tends to determine the rate of population growth, not the other way around.

yaix 14y ago
The other way around as well. High population growth causes slow economic growth /per capita/ (because the available income is distributed among more people). In the book "Poor Economics" the authors show how poor parents tent to invest most resources they have in only child's education. All the other children get much less education and therefore only low paying jobs, thus remain poor. Less population growth would have a direct positive economic effect on the society's average level of education. High population growth is also very expensive in terms of public services, you need to build more schools, hospitals, police, etc. All that investment in /quantity/ prevents you from investing it in /quality/.
redwood 14y ago
Are you talking about per capita economic growth? Anyway once a non-industrialized population reaches a population saturation point such that more people cannot create more agricultural produce (like here in Bangladesh) there's a squeeze on per capita economic output of the country. Sure the extra labor can now be used to industrialize, in theory. But the problem is without capital to industrialize with (as is the case here) a cycle of poverty can form which gets worse.
lusr 14y ago
But isn't the important question whether population growth is remaining below economic growth? And in that sense, it's a perfectly valid concern that an increase in population without an accompanying increase in economic growth is a serious problem. I live in South Africa where unemployment rates are already very significant; an increased population growth rate seems almost certain to make this situation worse.
Symmetry 14y ago
It depends. If capital accumulation is an important limiting factor in your country's growth, as it is in most of Africa, then adding more people will tend to increase the overall GDP but decrease the per capita GDP. If you're at the productivity frontier, however, and you're more limited by your ability to figure out how to use more capital (innovation). In this case there is still a small marginal return on having more capital per worker, but every worker is also a source of more innovation so its really hard to say whether adding more people (up to a certain point) will increase or decrease the per capita GDP. Generally speaking, when a country develops to a certain point it gets what's called a demographic dividend[1]. The population has been growing rapidly in the past, so there aren't that many old people to take care of. With wealth people start having less babies, though, so there are also a relatively small number of children to take care of relative to the number of working adults. Countries in this position can, if they manage to avoid messing up, grow very rapidly. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend

yaix 14y ago

Right. Unfortunately, especially in Africa, the --- and --- religions are fighting their war of who can produce more children.

DanBC 14y ago

Countries with an AIDS / HIV rate of 20% don't have to worry so much about a population boom. You need people to work the land. (http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Slideshow/43/Too-Poor-to-Farm http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Slideshow/43/Too-Poor-to-Farm) This is great news - some really simple interventions make dramatic reductions in death rates. Things like "soap and hot water to wash hands" or "boil the stones used to cut the cord" have made a big difference. Still, there's always more that can be done. > The maternal mortality ratio in Ethiopia is 676 for every 100,000 births. This compares to an average of 290 per 100,000 births in developing countries, and 14 per 100,000 in developed countries, (http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95356/ETHIOPIA-Still-too-many-deaths-in-childbirth http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95356/ETHIOPIA-Still-too-many...) And when you've prevented children dying in childbirth you need to ensure distribution of micronutirents. (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201112300839360722/A-young-girl-waits-at-a-flower-sellers-stall-in-Kathmandu-Almost-half-of-Nepalese-children-under http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201112300839360722/A-y...) Diarrhoea is the second biggest killer of children. A cheap course of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) costs about $0.50 us cents; this could save about three quarters of the 1.5 million deaths each year. Recognising the weird fact that coca-cola gets everywhere while ORS doesn't, an aid worker decided to use the powerful distribution networks of commercial companies to distribute ORS. (http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-save-a-life http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-...) He's not doing this through charity or subsidy. He's found a neat gap. > Almost 30 years after British aid worker Simon Berry first pondered the Coca-Cola conundrum while working in Zambia, he is about to turn the puzzle into an opportunity he hopes will drastically reduce child mortality by adopting some of these strategies. And he wants to do so through commerce, rather than charity, or even, in the long term, through subsidy. > Berry has isolated a gap in the market, literally in the spaces between crated Coca-Cola bottles trucked and biked to villages all over the developing world.