Made in China – A State of the Market Report

[David Olsen]

There is strong correlation between low birth rates and
countries with good human rights for females.

Those countries where women have more opportunity and control
over their lives have much more sustainable population
growth rate.

The answer in not forcing people to do the right thing,
but enabling them to.

[EndoftheTrail]

@ David, who wrote, "There is strong correlation between low birth rates and countries with good human rights for females".

Yes, but there is an even more basic — and stronger relationship — the one between economic development and low birth rates!

Look around the world:

1. Poor countries have high birth rates.
2. All industrializing countries experience their economic growth while still having high birth rates (not after).
3. All industrialized countries have low birth rates — after they've achieved 'middle income' status.

High birth rates are actually a symptom of poverty! Grow the economy — people become better educated and develop a higher expectation from life — and they get married later and have far fewer kids.

Why is that?

1. Raising a kid or six is cheap in poor countries. And yet, after a few years, they contribute to family livelihood. Schooling? What schooling?

2. As a country develops, and expectations are increaed, then raising a kid becomes ever more expensive! College!

Folks used to fret about high population growth in Ireland and Italy (not to mention Asia and Africa)! Now that they are rich (or at least middle income) — all European countries and most Asian countries (except the really poor ones like Indonesia and Philippines) have far lower birth rates! Africa still has high birth rates.

And thus, economic development actually takes care of the population 'bomb'!

[Lucas Boyer]

Benjamin, your assertions make sense. However, developed/industrialized countries consume more natural resources. I don't have any specific data, but I'd speculate that natural resource depletion soon outpaces the educated population wane you describe. Anyone w/ some data want to chime in here?

[Lynn Tramper]

"developed/industrialized countries consume more natural resources."

That is correct. We need to down-size our population AND our consumption. All of us.

[EndoftheTrail]

The two countries that are placing the most pressure on resources and the environment are: China and the US.

China's current problem is its 1.3 billion people. Free or not free / like it or not — its government has dictated one child per couple. That's about as drastic as any government can do and still remain in power.

US — What with our self-inflicted financial fiasco (greed and recklessness) and recession, the Obama admin. has been frantically borrowing from abroad to spend its way out! I think it will work this time — but I also think we are digging an ever deeper hole for ourselves — and the next time(s) will be that much worse!

Between the two, I see China doing a lot more — and our own country — NOTHING AT ALL. As a group — we are still consumer hogs.

[Anonymous]

"And thus, economic development actually takes care of the population 'bomb'!"

And creates an even more pernicious consumption bomb as everybody sets about living "The American Dream". Even if population stabilized at, say, 9 billion or so, were everyone to consume at a level anywhere nears ours, the world would be in serious trouble.

[Anonymous]

"we are still consumer hogs."

For which the GEAR ENABLER bears considerable responsibility. ;}

[EndoftheTrail]

Methinks population growth takes a much longer time to correct itself — whereas curbing consumption within richer societies should be easier and quicker. The Europeans are wealthy too — but their per capita resource consumption is much, much less than us Americans! Can't be that hard to just consume what's needed, plus a little bit more.

[David Olsen]

"@ David, who wrote, "There is strong correlation between low birth rates and countries with good human rights for females".

Yes, but there is an even more basic — and stronger relationship — the one between economic development and low birth rates!

Look around the world:

1. Poor countries have high birth rates.
2. All industrializing countries experience their economic growth while still having high birth rates (not after).
3. All industrialized countries have low birth rates — after they've achieved 'middle income' status.

High birth rates are actually a symptom of poverty! Grow the economy — people become better educated and develop a higher expectation from life — and they get married later and have far fewer kids.

Why is that?

1. Raising a kid or six is cheap in poor countries. And yet, after a few years, they contribute to family livelihood. Schooling? What schooling?

2. As a country develops, and expectations are increaed, then raising a kid becomes ever more expensive! College!

Folks used to fret about high population growth in Ireland and Italy (not to mention Asia and Africa)! Now that they are rich (or at least middle income) — all European countries and most Asian countries (except the really poor ones like Indonesia and Philippines) have far lower birth rates! Africa still has high birth rates.

And thus, economic development actually takes care of the population 'bomb'!"

—
Not so–

That is a factoid and incomplete.

Again, it is human rights and specifically women's
education, equality and
control over reproduction that allows low birth rates.

Countries with good income but patriarchs running things
continue to have high birth rates. Look at Saudi Arabia,
etc.

Study on women's education and birth rate in developing
countries.
http://www.eubios.info/EJ124/ej124i.htm

Another study- 71 countries
'Total fertility rate, women's education, and women's work: What are the relationships? '
http://www.springerlink.com/content/7557245468015475/

You can google more if you want.

These things are not going to 'fix themselves'.

Here is the kind of thing that will help-

http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

[EndoftheTrail]

David:

You brought up a good point… maybe we're both right in some ways and both wrong (or incomplete) in others.

Saudi Arabia is indeed an upper middle income country with a birth rate higher than it's per capita income would otherwise suggest. Now that you have pointed it out — I will revise my premise that "economic development is the basis for better education, livelihood, and higher expectation among the citizenry — which provides the wherewithal to achieve lower birth rates and other attributes of more advanced economies. However, there can be other social forces — religious, social and political — that come into play as well.

I do not disagree that women's fertility rates in a given society is correlated to women's education level. My point is simply that there is something even more basic: before even thinking about education, people need to feed themselves first! It is economic development that provides people (including women) the means to better educate themselves — which in turn raises expectation for better environment, more accountable governments, better laws that are actually enforced, etc., etc.

BTW, click here for a listing of birth rates by country. You will find:

1. Strong positive correlation between a country's economic development and its birth rates. Exception are relatively few (e.g. Saudi Arabia having a higher than expected birth rate, and poorer China having a lower than expected rate — in this case because of government dictation of "one child" policy).

2. No example of a very poor country with low birth rates because the women are well educated!

[Lynn Tramper]

While I agree that economic growth helps to reduce population growth, I think this is more than offset by the now educated and wealthier population consuming vastly more than the earth can support. We need population control and a cap on consumerism. Putting a cap on consumerism will be virtually impossible in a wealthy society…everyone wants the "American Dream" and given the means to achieve it, they will have it.

But it's all really irrelevant-climate change will no doubt take care of a lot of the excess population AND consumerism ;)

[Anonymous]

"But it's all really irrelevant-climate change will no doubt take care of a lot of the excess population AND consumerism ;)"

+1

I have this queasy feeling that the human race is about to get taken to the woodshed.

Mother Nature always has the last word.

[W I S N E R !]

"I have this queasy feeling that the human race is about to get taken to the woodshed."

No, it's more likely going to be humans that don't live in a country with a $685,000,000,000 a year military budget that get taken to the woodshed.

An afterthought on the concept of "taking care of excess population":
When you look at your children, your family, those you know and love, do you see "excess population"?
Who exactly are people referring to?
Talk like this is very disturbing to me- I think it often stinks of xenophobia and racism. Language like this is also a great way to abstract and trivialize the vast array of human suffering brought about by disease, famine, and natural disaster.
Who do you imagine? What people, what nations, and what cultures come to mind when you hear the words "excess population"?

[Lynn Tramper]

Excess population to me is too many people living in over-sized cities without direct access to local, in season produced goods. Excess population is anywhere that the rivers and water tables are rapidly depleting and polluted due to human excess. Excess population is where ever forests and productive croplands are being destroyed, where ever CO2 and methane emissions are more than the atmosphere can handle. It is nothing to do with xenophobia or racism. Yes, me and my family are excess population, yet I live in a country that encourages immigration as a means to increase 'economic growth', but at the expense of raping the land and oceans. I live under a huge ozone hole which was probably caused by excess population…

I don't wish disease and famine on anyone. If we ALL take immediate action to limit our consumption and pollution, then maybe we can avert disaster, but the behaviour of the two big powers at Copenhagen leaves me with a grim feeling that things will not go well for many of us in the near future ;(

http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3

[Anonymous]

"No, it's more likely going to be humans that don't live in a country with a $685,000,000,000 a year military budget that get taken to the woodshed."

Precisely the contrary, Craig, IMO. When old Mother Nature starts rolling up the carpet, it's us softies in the "advanced nations" who will have the hardest time. People who toil in obscurity, ekeing out a subsistance living in those nameless villages throughout India, Afghanistan, Zambia, Peru, to name a few, will continue more or less as they always have: No lattes, no BMW's, no clean water, no Roundup Ready Corn, no electricity, no modern medicine…. You get the picture. Suffering, as they always have, but surviving to begin the long slow climb back up to decadence. That is if we don't screw the web of life up so badly that all higher forms of life go extinct.

"Who do you imagine? What people, what nations, and what cultures come to mind when you hear the words "excess population"?"

Personally, when it comes to environmental issues, I have difficulty disentangling population numbers from consumption numbers. You tell me who's the bigger threat to the environment, a family of 4 living in a 5000 sq ft mansion with 4 cars, a yacht, a big screen TV in every room, etc, or some poor guy with 10 kids living in a mud hut with no running water, latrine, electricity, and maybe a few goats or a milk cow. Who, exactly is environmental excess? At some point both become a threat. There's certainly enough blame to go around.

[Anonymous]

"but the behaviour of the two big powers at Copenhagen leaves me with a grim feeling that things will not go well for many of us in the near future ;( "

That's the queasy feeling I was talking about.

BTW, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who can be depressing. ;-}

[Brian UL]

Population will be controlled the way it always has: disease, war, famine.
climate change? when in our evolution has the climate been non-changing? climate change is a non issue for survival when we can live like the Inuit or Bedouin or go underground. No matter what the sun will eventually burn us off the surface anyway.
GW is just the latest way to make people feel guilty in a secular society where the supernatural no longer provides that function. Its a great way to rally the youth against the establishment and solidify class warfare as wealthy college kids riding bikes nurse a growing hatred twords the poor and working classes who are tramped within the infrastructure that was provided. Instead of fighting for a new infrastructure we are senselessly moralizing to people as if they can all move their families into Walden cabin. GW is the social litmus test were conformity is demanded not science where skepticism and critical thinking is applauded.
Instead of cleaning our water and air, rebuilding a sustainable infrastructure and protecting wild land we fritter our time away demonizing our neighbors for doing the very things we ourselves our guilty of. Imagine what could happen if we used the money and resources that went to Copenhagen on something like bringing back electric street cars in a major city? Instead its wasted on a symbolic political gesture.

[W I S N E R !]

I think we're all on the same page here.
My earlier post about racism/xenophobia isn't directed at either one of you (Tom or Lynn) personally.
It comes from personal experiences with others:
excess population usually = India, Africa, China, etc., therefor "removing excess population" seems to always imply getting rid of certain people…usually ones that aren't white.

Sure, we in the west are very dependent on energy and various inputs.
But we've also got plenty of room to spare.
I'd bet that everyone on this website could spare 20-25% of their daily calories and not die (they'd possibly be healthier for it!)
Can we say the same for the rest of the world?
A 25% reduction in energy puts us on par with our lives a few decades ago…and life goes on, albeit more slowly.
But it puts much of the rest of the world in near stone-age conditions. I'd argue that massive ecological change leaves those living on the brink far more vulnerable than we are.

And then throw in the military.
If resources are dwindling and civilization is headed for an ecological crash, mother nature WILL likely have the last word.
But the second to last words will likely be spoken by the nation with the largest military. I don't see this culture going without a hell of a fight- taking what it needs from wherever it can. Hasn't that already been the history of the west in the 20th century?

I have to wonder how far this culture will go.

Didn't we just have people on this site threatening to call the Attorney General of their state because they couldn't get a mispriced $100 sweater for $30? :0

[Brian UL]

"Hasn't that already been the history of the west in the 20th century?"
Its the history of the world since forever.

[W I S N E R !]

"Its the history of the world since forever."

I stand corrected!

[Miguel Arboleda]

Sure, we in the west are very dependent on energy and various inputs.
But we've also got plenty of room to spare.
I'd bet that everyone on this website could spare 20-25% of their daily calories and not die (they'd possibly be healthier for it!)
Can we say the same for the rest of the world?
A 25% reduction in energy puts us on par with our lives a few decades ago…and life goes on, albeit more slowly.

Makes you wonder how many of us here really know anything at all about living lightly!

[W I S N E R !]

I came home one day and found a picture torn from a National Geographic posted on our refrigerator. It depicted Chinese women gathering small chunks of coal and buckets of coal dust on a hillside adjacent a coal mining operation. They were layered in rags to protect against the winter. The mine's leftover coal dust was their sole source of cooking fuel and heating; they were constantly being run off by the mine's guards.

I asked my wife why it was there.

She said it was so we wouldn't forget.

Hell, I suppose millions don't even have the luxury of coal dust right now.

I don't know where the picture went- but it's not there now. But thinking about it, really contemplating the lives of most of the people on this planet every time you're reaching for another treat…it's not an easy thing for anyone to keep up. It's not even that we have it good- it's that we have it soooo good and don't even really know it.

I don't think we know a damned thing about "living light".

[Brian UL]

Not only do we not really understand what it means to live "light" or frugally, but sadly we have become very ungrateful for all we do have.

[Lynn Tramper]

"But the second to last words will likely be spoken by the nation with the largest military. I don't see this culture going without a hell of a fight- taking what it needs from wherever it can. Hasn't that already been the history of the west in the 20th century?"

Although so sadly true, I think it is this mindset that is making it so hard for America in particular to take these issues to heart and act on them. Most have it so good, and trust their military might will keep it that way, regardless of who gets plundered. In many ways, this plunder is already happening for oil, but on a more insidious level it is happening in many other ways, like the massive diversion of crop plants to biodeisel which is driving up world grain prices beyond the means of the poorest, all so we can continue to drive our SUVs to the trail head. As you can see, I by no means think the developing countries (or other races) are solely to blame here. It's a global problem that needs folks to act on a local level. China is actually leading a lot of initiatives to control population, improve water use efficiency, use alternative renewable power sources, plant crops and tress to immobilise growing deserts and stabilise landslide risks, put a stop to naive tree logging, sustainable farm fishing, multicropping, returning farmers to th land, reducing air pollution, improving public transport, etc…and of course there's all those bicycles in Beijing ;)

Likewise India and South America are trying a lot harder than they have in the past. There are many examples of developing countries that we should pay attention to.

Africa, OTOH, has a lot further to go :(

[Anonymous]

"But the second to last words will likely be spoken by the nation with the largest military. I don't see this culture going without a hell of a fight- taking what it needs from wherever it can. Hasn't that already been the history of the west in the 20th century?"

Maybe, but I doubt that it will be us. We're in the process of gutting ourselves in Iraq(not over yet) and Afghanistan. While we're pi$$ing away blood and treasure on "Afghanistan's plains", with other candidates waiting in the wings, the rot spreads inexorably here at home. Without a strong vibrant economy and society here, our ability to project force and "have the last word" will prove of limited duration. And then?

[Author]

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