Chapter 6 Population and Development Copyright © 2008 Pearson Prentice Hall, Inc. Environmental Science Tenth Edition Richard T. Wright.

Chapter 6Population and Development

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Prentice Hall, Inc.

EnvironmentalScienceTenth Edition

Richard T. Wright

India: a Nation of Contrast• Known for corporate call centers

– Gurgaon; small city outside Delhi, India• Genpact: employs 13,000 pple

– Recruiting 1,100 new employees/mth

– Aspiring to live in modern housing complexes

Heritage City , Gurgaon, India

The Other Side of Gurgaon, India

The old India: a nation with rapid population growth

•Families living in shanty tows•Sacred cows roaming the streets•Garbage everywhere•Shoeless children begging for rupees

Today’s India; an Independent Nation

• Gained independence @ 60 yrs ago• Population tripled since- 1.1 billion people• Growing at @ 19 million/year• More populous than China by 2035• More than 50% of the children are

undernourished• 80%+ live on less than $2/day• 50% adult illiteracy• GNI per capita of $530/year

A challenging situation, but not hopeless!

What About Kerala, India?

Kerala, India

• The southernmost state of India• Population of @33 million• Living in an area about the size of Kentucky• One of the most densely populated regions in the

world• A tropical region with lush plantations

– Coffee, tea, rubber, spices, rice, coconut, banana, sugarcane and tapioca.

• On the Indian Ocean- fishing• It is crowded, low per capita income, and has only

adequate food intake.

In Contrast- Kerala, India

State of Kerala

Nation of India

Life expectancy

71 years 61 years

Infant mortality

17/1000 72/1000

Fertility rate 1.8 3.3

Literacy rate 90%+ 50%

Kerala – a region on its way to stability• All villages in the state have access to

schools and modern health services

• Equitable land distribution

• Caste system is virtually eliminated

• Efficient food distribution

• Women as well-educated as men

• Showing it is possible to undergo demographic transition without complete economic development

Population and Development

• Reassessing the demographic transition• Promoting development • A new direction: social modernization• The Cairo conference

Remember last chapter

• Demographic transition describes a shift from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates that has taken place over time in industrialized countries

• Using a graph, you can plot a countries birth and death rates and see where they are in the transition

How did developed nations avoid the poverty-population trap?

• Disease control gradually lowered death rates– 1800-1900

• Industrialization lowered fertility rates

• Never huge discrepancy between birth and death rates

In the developing world

• Medicine was introduced suddenly, rapidly– Rapid decline in death rates

• Only slow development causing slow decline in fertility

What can we do to try to fast forward them through demographic transition?

• 2 theories1. Speed up economic development will cause

pop. Slow down, “automatically”

2. Concentrate on regulating pop. and on family planning technologies to decrease birth rates.

Population Conferences

• Bucharest Romania 1974– US strong advocate of Pop. Control– Developing nations – “development is the best

contraceptive• Resisted family planning- saw as genocide

• Mexico City 1984– Sides somewhat reversed

• Developing Nations wanted help with family planning• Development is the answer, no more aid to

international family planning efforts (till 1993)

ICPD(International Conference on Population

and Development)• Cairo 1994

• Linked poverty, population and development

• Focus on resources and environmental degradation

• All agreed that population must be controlled in order to reduce poverty and promote economic development

4 Areas of Agreement

1. Women’s Rights to healthcare, education and employment are essential to reducing population growth

2. Development must be linked to reduced poverty

3. Poverty is an affront to human dignity that should not be tolerated

4. Both Poverty and Development are a threat to the health of the environment so only sustainable development is desirable

In Brief This Chapter Is About

• Improving the lives of people

• Reducing fertility rates

• Protecting the environment

The Demographic Window• With decreased birth rates, the working

age population increases relative to the younger and older members of the population.

• Lowering the dependency ratio: the ratio of non-working population (under 15 and over 65) to the working age population– Therefore the society spends less on schools,

old age expenses – Spends more on generating economic growth

• Demographic dividend

Changing Dependency Ratios

• S Korea, Brazil and Mexico– Have used this brief window of a reduced

ratio and the demographic dividend to spur rapid economic development

• South Asia (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh)– Approaching this window– What will they do?

The Demographic WindowRatio of non-working (<15 and >65) to working population = more workersand fewer mouths to feed.

The Window is Brief

• A generation or two

• Then the large working population ages with few children to support them

Children As an Economic Asset

How the Work Gets Done in Developing Countries

The Connection between Fertility Rate and Income

•Countries on the far left are all in the early to middle stages of demographic transition, most are low income economies•Those on the right are all middle income economies and are moving through the transitionTHE FERTILITY TRANSITION IS THE MOST VITAL ELEMENT to demographic transition.

The relationship between Contraceptive use and Fertility Rate

Reasons for Large Families in Developing Countries

• Old age security• High infant and childhood mortality rates• Children are considered an economic asset• Importance of education for women minimized• Low social status of women

– Often respect is proportional to Number of children

• Low availability and/or use of contraceptives– Many women state they want no more children or to

delay the next child

Discuss Interrelationships of Factors Influencing Family Size

• Importance of education and children viewed as economic assets or liabilities– Are children, in America, an asset or a liability?– What examples do you have to support your position?– What are the main factors influencing family size in the

US? – How is that different from families in a developing

country?– Are the decisions made by families in developing

countries better than those made by families in developed countries?

– Should we impose our values on other people? Explain.

Discuss Status of women and importance of education

• Are women, in the US, given the same status as men?– What evidence do you have to support your position?

• Is education more valuable in men or women or neither? Explain

• What gives women status among men? • What gives women status among women?• Are they the same? Explain• How are women with many children viewed in the

US?– Provide evidence

Discuss the following factors in relation to family size

• What bearing do the following three factors have on decisions about family size in the US?– Income and old age security– Cultural views on child-bearing– Contraceptive use and availability

• How are they similar and how are they different from those in developing countries?

Why do fertility Rates remain high in Developing countries?

• Not because they are irrational or irresponsible

• Because socio-cultural climate favors high fertility

• And because contraceptives are often unavailable

• Poverty, high fertility and environmental degradation drive one another

The Poverty Cycle

Escaping the Poverty Trap!

• Development must provide:1. Old age security, not dependant on children

2. Lower infant and child mortality

3. Universal education

4. Higher education and career opportunities for women

5. Access to contraceptives

Promoting Development Through Public Policy

• Good and bad news

• Millennium Development Goals

• World agencies at work

• The debt crisis

• Development aid

Good (Left) and Bad (Right) News from Developing Countries

• Economic progress– 5X increase in GNP

– higher wages

– % impoverished (<$1/day) has dropped from 40%-20%

• Social progress– > literacy rates

– > clean drinking water

– > sanitary sewers

– < fertility rates (Table 6.1)

• Still 1.1 billion people live on < $1/day

• >1 billion lack access to clean water

• Almost 1 billion live in urban slums

• >800 million are malnourished– Higher disease rates– Shorter lives– More infant death, illiteracy

“Massive poverty and obscene inequalityare such terrible scourges of our times—times in which the world boasts breath-taking advances in science, technology,industry and wealth accumulation—thatthey have to rank alongside slavery andapartheid in social evils.”

Nelson Mandela, 2005

Reflect on this quote be prepared to share your thoughts

Adult Female Illiteracy: A Global Comparison

Millennium Development Goals (Table 6-2)

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce child mortality

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Forge a global partnership for development

World Agencies At Work: The World Bank

• Helped initiate the Millennium Development Goals

• Environmental strategy: Making sustainable commitments

World Agencies At Work: The World Bank

• No increased GNP• Increased absolute poverty• Large-scale decentralized projects:

hydroelectric dams• Large cattle operations • Cash crops

World Bank Reform• Improving the quality of life

• Improving the quality of growth

• Improving the quality of the regional and global commons

• World Bank creating poverty (BBC Newsnight).flv

• Goal:Loaning money to fund development projects intended to generate enough money to allow the loans to be paid back– What happened?

• Corruption, mismanagement, and miscalculations

The Debt Crisis

• Total debt of developing countries reached $2.8 trillion in 2005 (Figure 6-10)

• The typical credit-debt trap• Creditor countries primary beneficiaries

• 2003, $322 billion in new loans, paid back $277 billion in principal and $95 billion in interest- adding $50 billion to crediting countries!

Coping with the Debt Crisis

• Grow cash crops• Develop austerity measures• Exploit natural resources

Official Development Assistance

$78.6 billion in 2004

A New Direction: Social Modernization

• Improving education

• Improving health

• AIDS

• Family planning

• Employment and income

• Resource management

Education in Developing Countries

The Greatest Challenge to Health Care in Developing Countries

• AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)

Impacts of AIDS Epidemic• 90% of all HIV-infected people (40 million by

2006) live in developing countries• Life expectancy in Botswana was 61 years in

1980 – now 34 years• One million elementary students lost teachers• 2.5 million AIDS orphans in developing world

by 2010

Family Planning

• Counseling on: STDs, contraceptives, spacing children, pregnancy avoidance

• Supplying contraceptives

• Pre- and postnatal care

More or Less?

• Cutbacks in family-planning services lead to (more or less) unwanted pregnancies and (more or less) demand for abortions.

American Statistics

Founder of Grameen Bank

• Muhammad Yunus: Economics professor in Bangladesh

• Microlending model duplicated by over 100 countries

• Recipient of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

Employment and Income: Grameen Bank Loans (Microlending)

• Primarily to women

• Does not upset existing social structure

• Utilize local resources

• Utilize central work places

• Helps develop self-reliance

Resource Management

• Replant trees

• Prevent erosion

• Resource management educational programs

Putting It All Together: Social Modernization

The Cairo Conference

• All nations agreed that population is an issue of crisis proportions that must be confronted forthrightly.

• Formulated the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action (ICPD Program of Action)

The 1994 ICPD Program of Action

• Maintaining and enhancing productivity of natural resources

• Empowerment of women

• Emphasis on family

The 1994 ICPD Program of Action

• Enhancing reproductive and basic health of women and children

• Improve education opportunities for women

• Reduce population migrations• International cooperation (0.7% GNP of

developed world)