Made in China – A State of the Market Report

@ 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'!

"developed/industrialized countries consume more natural resources."

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

"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.

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:

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!

"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.

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

"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. ;-}

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

"Its the history of the world since forever."

I stand corrected!

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".

"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 :(