Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertFisher
It is an age old theory, that the world has an over-population problem, and that the earth's resources cannot sustain more and more people, all needing to eat beef, find housing, flush toilet, move around.
However, at the individual country level many countries are also dreading low population growth rate; some even resorting to immigration to meet population growth target.
Do these two ideas contradict each other?
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No. The contradiction is apparent because the first statement is patently false and the second statement is purely ethnocentric, since it applies strictly to Western Europe, the English-speaking States and Japan.
Earth is not over-populated. Earth can easily handle a population of 65 Billion.
Before you get your knickers in a twist, relax. Earth's population will peak at about 16-18 Billion, flat-line and then decline slightly.
There is a correlating relationship between economic development and population growth.
The more developed an economy of any given State is, the lower the rate of population growth.
When your economy is 0 Level Agrarian or 1st Level Natural Resources, you need a huge population because both are labor intensive and little education is required.
When a State shifts into the 2nd Level Manufacturing & Industry, it requires a better educated work-force. You can look to the US as a textbook example.
Men are now finishing high school, which means marriage is delayed and the birth-rate declines.
The 2nd Level Economy also requires finance, accounting, management, administration, logistics, marketing and many other job skills that can only be obtained through university, so marriage is delayed further, so is child-birth and the birth-rate declines.
The birth-rate of the US substantially and continuously declined in the decades before birth control was introduced in the early 1960s.
But even with the introduction of birth control, it had little impact because birth control was not available to all women, it was only available to women of means, or about 10% of women.
Even so, the economy had entered the 3rd Level requiring even greater education, meaning post-graduate education.
Western Europe, the English-speaking States and Japan had by the 1970s began accepting women into the work-force and that caused women to delay marriage or reduce child-birth leading to a greater decline in the birth-rate.
There's also a societal phenomenon.
In 0 and 1st Level Economies your needs are focused on community/tribe.
When you enter the 2nd Level, that focus shifts to the needs of your extended family.
As you continue economic development, your focus shifts to the needs of your family, then to your needs.
Because you are focused on your needs, marriage and child-birth are delayed and sometimes no children are at issue so that leads to a negative birth-rate, which is what we see in the aforementioned States.
The UN's definition of "access to electricity" is amusing.
If you can walk 7 miles to a neighboring village that has a dry-goods store with an electrical outlet and plug in your laptop to charge the battery, then you have "access to electricity" (snicker).
My definition of "access to electricity" is there's a freaking electrical outlet in your home and it really is connected to power lines that run to a power generation plant that runs 24/7.
I mention that, because there's a war going on.
On one side, the Chinese, who are doing everything in their power to economically develop the sub-Saharan African States.
Why?
Because the wage differential between China and sub-Saharan Africa isn't so great and if sub-Saharan Africa rides China's coat-tails, China will have trading partners for the next 500 years.
On the other side is the US, who set up AFRICOM to meddle and interfere in the political, economic and social development of the sub-Saharan States to stymie their economic development.
Why?
It isn't that the US doesn't want sub-Saharan Africa to develop economically, it's just that the US was that development to be at the pleasure and discretion of the US, and 100% to the benefit of the US.
But, the point is, when sub-Saharan Africa gets roads, and I mean concrete/asphalt roads that can handle truck traffic, and railroads and electricity and running water and sewage, then those States will move into the 2nd Level Economy.
That means Africans will have to complete the 10th-12th grades to work in that economy and many will need university education and that will delay marriage and child-birth causing the birth-rate to decline.
Then, as they move into the 3rd Level Economy, it will require even more education at higher levels, delaying marriage and child-birth even longer causing the birth-rate to fall further still.
You have about 2.5 Billion people who have no access to electricity and they are the biggest driver's of global population growth.
When they get developed, that will no longer be the case.
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