Economics

التحدي السكاني

Nov 14, 2014 Bjørn Lomborg

بريزبين – عندما يفكر الناس في "مشكلة السكان " في العالم فإنهم عادة ما يركزون على النمو السكاني السريع في اجزاء من العالم النامي ولكن على مستوى العالم فإن معدل النمو السكاني في تراجع ومن المتوقع ان يستقر في مرحلة لاحقه من هذا القرن وبالرغم من انه ليس باستطاعتنا تجاهل حقيقة انه طبقا لتقديرات الامم المتحدة فإنه يتوجب علينا اطعام 2،4 بليون انسان اضافي على مستوى العالم بحلول منتصف القرن فإن هناك مشكلة سكانيه اخرى تستوجب الاهتمام الجدي وهي وجود جيوب ضخمه من التراجع الديمغرافي.

أما في الدول المتقدمه فليس فقط نسبة الكبار في السن بازدياد ولكن معدلات الولادة منخفضه جدا للابقاء على اجمالي عدد السكان وبينما يجب الاحتفاء بالزيادة في متوسط العمر المتوقع والتي تقف وراء هذا التحول فإنه يجب التعامل مع المشاكل المرتبطه بالعواقب من وراء تلك الزيادة – اجبار اعداد متزايده من الناس في سن العمل على دعم الزيادة في أعداد المتقاعدين-.

ما يحصل في الدول الناميه هو العكس تماما حيث توجد هناك اعداد كبيره من الشباب بدون عمل أو على الاقل بدون وظيفة بدوام كامل وذات نوعيه جيده وفي واقع الامر لن يمضي وقت طويل قبل ان تبدأ تلك البلدان بمواجهة مشاكل ارتفاع اعداد كبار السن وتقلص عدد السكان ايضا ولكن حاليا فإن لديها اعداد كافيه من السكان في سن العمل وهم بحاجه للوظائف.

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Bjørn Lomborg

Writing for PS since 2005
181 Commentaries

Bjørn Lomborg, a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, is Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. His books include The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, and, most recently, Prioritizing Development. In 2004, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people for his research on the smartest ways to help the world.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 23 Comments on this article

Berman Hudson Mar 21, 2015

The 20th century was a nightmarish panorama of violence, human degradation and suffering that taught us nothing. The 21st century is shaping up to be even more horrific. Glad I won't be around in 2050.
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Avraam Dectis Dec 7, 2014

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Dr. Lomborg's thoughtful commentary is deficient.

The problem with immigration is that when you immigrate a man you also immigrate his culture. Nobody leaves their culture at the border.

If you suggest large scale immigration, you also suggest replacing the dominant culture. Citizens of the destination country, feeling that their own culture is superior, are extremely opposed to this. Witness the rise of UKIP.

This highlights one of the problems in many economic analysis. Only the dollars matter, there is no variable in the equation that represents culture.

Also, a country that is saying that it needs immigration to solve its problems is effectively saying that it has lost faith in itself. It has a shameful aspect.
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Moritz G€d1g Dec 2, 2014

Yes, we should migrate the elderly to Africa.
They will appreciate the dry warmth of the Sahel-zone.
Wait, is that what he meant? Oh, he means that African health workers from the most uneducated areas of the planet should come to Europe.
I am sure they have plenty bright educated women to spare.
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Bing De La Vega Nov 22, 2014

Any population measures to control it has been opposed by the church and particularly the Catholic. Predominantly Catholic countries are poor and over populated. Which the author failed to address. And yet, the Catholic Church is quick to point to the government the problems of over population or its challenges. It is quite awkward to even discuss this problem with a friend-priest because theirs is based on the religious teachings but the teaching of the young to control is not taught in many schools certainly not in the parochial schools. The cost of Population control and the challenges starting with the young is far more practical but more costly when the problems will have arrived
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george sos Nov 21, 2014

what is easier?To share the wealth equally to all people,or to move people around,with all the problems that this creates?What we are constantly trying to avoid to see is that all earth and people problems are due to our greed.If we share ,peoiple will not have the need to raise lots of kids in the hope that this will suport them in the older age,and we will not expect the immigration to fill up the pensions schemes that run out of new input.We need to reshare,to stop exploiting,to stop stealing resources ,to stop!in general.No pharmaceutical companies are tyrying to sell more pills,the religious want more control over people so they do not lose their wealth ,which has been taken from the poorest ,the states want to keep policing borders because otherwise what will all these parasites that work for border controls do?they will have to feed themselves...but west doesnt want to cultivate,wants to work only in hiugh end jobs.....Reshare!!!equally this time.with all.Then you will discover ,sall problems,all ewars ,are gone!!!and if some greedy ones try again to steal,they will have against them strong people,not needy poor uneducated people that can be coerced and driven into decisions that will hurt themselves....I hope you get it!
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Irina Muhina Nov 19, 2014

Couple statements are so profound e.g. when author is writing "Better access to contraception would enable mothers to spend more time raising – and educating – the children that they do have." Really ? is it what west families are doing ? I don't think so .. I think in US they send kids after 5 weeks to day care, pre-schooling and schools and work 60 hours a week to keep up with price of living . another misconception is "Fewer kids also means that a larger share of the population would be working, boosting the economy " well yes, to be precise means more profit for corporations. Two incomes family is boosting by consuming more and more and have no quality time with kids rather then rushing and racing. It is a so biased view and remind me a lot about golden billion theory which is very inhuman. Only God could decide who has a life on this planet and how has not....
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Audry Mbugua Nov 19, 2014

Access to contraceptives still remains a major challenge in Africa. Catholicism, lack of education and cultural practices still persist as major threats to the enjoyment of the right to access reproductive health care in Africa. Additionally, the emigration of the educated and skilled youth from Africa to developed nations will undoubtedly cause economic decline in Africa.
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Jose araujo Nov 17, 2014

Amazing how Malthusians and neo-Malthusians persist in the same errors, to forecast the future based on the same conditions, ignoring technology and inovation impact.

Yes in the future there will be 2.4 billion more mouths, but also 2.4 billion more brains. Just imagine the innovation output once India and China reach developed country levels...the ammount of brains, cientists working is stagering. We will produce more innovation in one year then all mankind to date.

Also wan't to argue about the demographic effect on developed countries, yes population is growing old, but so is youth unemployment. Reality is that we don't need so many people to achive the same outputs, productivity grows exponentially, much more then the regression in demographics.

Do people really believe developed countries will regress? If not, why persist in the arguments of aging population, you see to advocate for demographic problems equals the believe that output will be lower, which never happened,nor will it happen due to technological advances.
- Jose araujo Nov 24, 2014
  
  Seamus, i think that with the development of India and China, just to speak on this two countries, the increase on the number of brains dedicated to science is amazing
  
  We are very far from the technologic limits today, and even further from tech limits, so our possibilities are endless.
  
  But what I wanted to point is that you can't project our future based on todays conditions, things have changed and will change more then the human mind can invision.
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- Seamus O'Brien Nov 18, 2014
  
  Yes Jose there will be 2.4 billion more brains working on the problems of the world by mid century. Unfortunately most of them will be places that do not do a good job developing their human capital. So most of those brains will not be put to good use.
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michael CROCKETT Nov 17, 2014

It is surely a fact that the more equality given to women, the lower the rate of growth, and this is widely observable world wide. The danger of slower economic growth as a result of lower growth rates, seems to me a very small price to pay for a reducing population that the natural world we live on can support. A growing population will in the end , mean the extinction of the human race.
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dan thisdell Nov 17, 2014

three problems:
- the (western) political barriers to increased migration are insuperable
- even in shrinking western places we suffer from overcrowding; the UK, for example, needs jobs outside of London, not more workers to look after elderly Londoners
- the unfortunate persistence of religion, ignorance and misogyny undermine laudable efforts at encouragijng birth control

Some migration is certainly a positive contributor to this real problem, and not doubt a cont-effective approach. But that's no good if it's unrealistic. What we really need long-term is a global declining population and the ability to cope with the effects of that decline until such time as population (hopefully) stabliises.
If, that is, we survive long enough without environmental and economic calamity, which sadly seems unlikely.
Which is to say that while I admire optimism, all my calculations say we're screwed.
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David Morgan Nov 17, 2014

The muslims in the poorest regions in Sub Saharan Africa are increaasingly out breeding the rest. Islam and Catholisism is a major problem. There is no place for archaic practices in the modern world. Having 8 children with few prospects and little food is no way to live.
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Nathan W Nov 16, 2014

Countries with large, young and highly unemployed populations which anticipate relative demographic decline in the next generation or two could, relatively speaking, reap great dividends indeed if they can find a way to provide today's youth with opportunities to develop their ability in manners which are socially, politically and economically beneficial. Otherwise, a future decline in average living standards will be far more likely.
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Velko Simeonov Nov 16, 2014

Moving people around the globe is not the same as moving widgets. You are talking about upending entire communities at the source and dramatically changing the ethnic structure at the target communities, most likely leading to significant shocks threatening the very fabric of society in these target communities. This sounds a bit what Stalin did in the USSR, shifting people from one place to another. I cannot believe the lightness with which such issues are discussed!
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Kai Kaufmann Nov 15, 2014

"But, globally, the population-growth rate is actually falling, and is expected to plateau later this century."

Mr Bjørn Lomborg might be well advised to go back to school and learn the difference between population and its derivative, population growth rate. Growth rate at a plateau is the characteristic of an exponential function. What he means is that the population growth rate will go down to zero, resulting in the population number reaching a plateau.

It could of course be the case that his knowledge of English leaves something to be desired and he does not know that when the first noun of a sentence is the "(population-growth) rate", then the pronoun "it" will refer to the rate, and not the population itself.

Finally, this could also be the case of a sloppy error, but then I'd wonder about his editing team.
- Kai Kaufmann Nov 17, 2014
  
  Great, so now a person who can't spell my name (or who is "merely" being impolite) and a person who is kind and nuanced, but sloppy with regards to syntax have added a comment to my comment. To clarify: I am not aware of having attacked any person; as far as I know my attack was on a statement.
  
  Thank you, Bjørn, for updating the article; it is much appreciated.
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- Vincent Kaija Nov 17, 2014
  
  Cannot understand why Lomborg is being attacked in tjis manner even his statement was wrong.
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- Margaret Porter Nov 16, 2014
  
  Mr. Kauffman, you seem to be the only one who is confused by that sentence. It is clear to me what Mr. Lomborg intended.
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Indra Abdurahman Nov 15, 2014

A straightforaward and bold idea. Unfortunately,both immigration and contraception are sensitive issues. The developed world tend to perceive immigration to be bigger than what is acutally happening ,https://www.ipsos-mori.com. Probably, this is the fear of foreigner taking jobs,not enough jobs to go around, some sense of first world superiority or plain racism. For contraception, telling poor people not to have too many kids does make a lot of sense but faces hurdles in terms of communicating this to uneducated, tradional people posssibly living in countries where governments are weak or nonexistent.
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Ken Presting Nov 14, 2014

Readers new to these issues should know that Mr. Lomborg is the designated bait-and-switch hitter for the Climate Change Denial movement. He doesn't deny climate change directly; instead, he creates a diversion. His latest target is the proposed update to UN Millenium Development Goals, which advocate sharply reduced usage of fossil fuels. Bjorn is doing his best to get the UN to do anything else but reduce fossil fuel consumption.

If you click through his links, you'll see that his report finds development and substition of renewable energy is consistently evaluated as the worst of all possible proposals for the future. There is a representative sample of objections to that work, cited in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus

I myself am still trying to find out who funds Mr. Lomborg's "think tank" which in fact employs almost no researchers, but rather organizes conferences. If Mr. Lomborg can enlighten readers here as to his funding sources, he would be addressing a familiar criticism of his work.

It is public information that Lomborg appeared as a speaker in an event sponsored by Reason magazine, which is influential in right-wing Amercian politics: http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/15/register-today-for-reasons-2014-cruise-f

Birds of a feather?
- Ken Presting Nov 17, 2014
  
  In reply to Mr. Lindenberg -
  
  Thanks for your comment, but I would say you have missed my point, and still, I would disagree with yours. Mr. Lomborg's argument is strategically narrow. His analysis is entirely dollar-driven, an does not consider which population segments in the countries receiving aid would benefit. This problem is endemic to all his work.
  
  Anyone who is actually interested in development economics might enjoy Amartya Sen's classic, "Development as Freedom."
  
  But Lomborg is only here to distract the rest of us from the growing need to drop fossil fuels from the planet's energy supply. The least-developed countries, and ther most vulnerable populations, will be decimated by global warming. Mr. Lomborg has no right to discuss development policy at all, until he admits that issue into his analysis.
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- Grzegorz Lindenberg Nov 16, 2014
  
  No matter whose money Mr Lomborg is using - his article makes sense, doesn't it?
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