Paul Morland

UK Demographer Paul Morland writes of long-term demographic trends. The 10 numbers are (it's no spoiler; they are on the front cover):

1. 10: The Infant mortality rate per Thousand in Peru
2. 4 Billion: The population of Africa by 2100
3. 121: Chinese cities with a population of Over a Million People
4. 1: Singapore's Total Fertility Rate
5. 43: The Median Age in Catalonia
6. 79,000: People in Japan Aged Over 100
7. 55: Percentage Decline in Bulgaria's Population in a Century
8. 22: Percentage of Californian Schoolchildren who are White
9. 71: Literacy Rate per Hundred Among Bangladeshi Women
10. 375: Percentage increase in Cereal Production in Ethiopia in the last 25 Years

Together these numbers make a story of globally falling birth rates (except in Africa) and improving standards of living. Demographics are slow-moving but impactful statistics. For me the eye-opening numbers were the African population boom (4 billion by 2100, one in three humans on the planet by that time) and the relative improvement and gender equality of education in Bangladesh).

I disagree with the author when he writes that climate change will have little effect on these numbers; he seems a little too confident that technology will solve the challenges. However The data he works with is long-term, so perhaps he is correct.… (meer)

Important reading to understand why some countries have higher rates of violence and war (younger and poorer cohorts of men - say, Yemen - are not insignificant), and many other influences from demography on the world today. Read it while occasionally going onto the Dollar Street website set up by Gap Minder ( https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street ). Dollar Street allows you to contemplate the details of particular people's lives and living circumstances through images and words, and thereby gives you flesh on the abstract bones of statistical demography. Read the book and look at the website together and you will have done important work in enlarging and deepening your understanding of the world beyond your nation's boundaries.… (meer)

Interesting coverage of how populations (and in particular, differential demographic transitions, both from malthusian to industrial ("first") and from industrial to post-industrial ("second") have caused issues, both between countries and due to ethnic and religious subgroups within countries.

Lots of interesting facts (USSR had such an unstoppable demographic wave that the population went up even during WW1 to WW2 despite massive losses from civil war, famine, Stalin, and Hitler). The "abortion as primary birth control" in USSR was also new to me (the average Soviet woman had ~7 abortions in her lifetime).

The core themes of demographic transitions, groups not having an "innate" growth rate but varying by circumstance (e.g. Germans used to be massively fertile and are now sub-replacement), etc. were all well presented. It was a bit less engaging of presentation than it could have been, but I think part of that is to avoid being inflammatory.… (meer)

Fascinating. Really gives a new angle on the whole of modern history and human existence in general, while based on hard facts (I presume) and simple statistics. Some points we learn: simple population size, if not determinant, is a major factor in war; but even the loss of millions may be just a blip in a growing population. How Malthus was right for his time but missed that the world was changing even as he wrote. Japan's economic freeze is no accident, and still not a good long-term investment. Africa might well be, but South Africa (Africa's most developed country by far) is a victim of one of the modern Four Horsemen (AIDS), with serious consequences. Education and literacy, especially for women, brings down fertility rates dramatically, as does city living. So the world population explosion is set to cool down.
Britain as the first to industrialise could dominate the world for a while. She showed a pattern which more or less repeats around the world. Population rise - emigration and military victories - flattening out and eventual shrinkage.… (meer)