The need of population research in China

The author discusses the defective population data of China's past and the gradual, somewhat sporadic, improvements which have taken place in recent years. He draws attention to the types of population studies and data now most required, including sample censuses, adequate vital registration, studies of internal migration, of the relation of population density to developed resources, and of ethnic minorities in China. In addition to these contemporary questions, historical inquiries are also needed to produce, as far as possible, a reliable and coherent account of population trends in Chinese history.     

Canada's population: growth and dualism

In Canada the current 1.3% population growth rate is causing some concern. Those concerned argue that such a rate of growth in combination with high levels of consumption could jeopardize the country's resource base and its comfortable style of living. Many Canadians are questioning high levels of immigration, for now that the fertility level is below replacement level, net immigration contributes substantially to population growth (over 1/3 in 1976). The growing proportion of non-Europeans among recent immigrants is causing resentment, and, in a tight job market, immigrants are regarded as threats to the World War 2 baby boom cohort who are now at working ages. The baby boom generation also puts stress on housing and health services, and it will increase the need for pension checks as it ages. Although French fertility is no longer high and immigration is no longer dominated by the British, the French group's 200-year struggle to preserve its identity continues on in the current effort of the Quebec government to enforce the use of French language by law within that province. Geography and climate dictate another demographic fact that divides the country and pervades its history. In addition to intense regionalism, uneven population distribution is responsible for 2 other concerns: the rapid growth of several already large cities and depopulation of many small communities. Focus in this discussion is on Canada's population growth in the past and as projected for the future, historical and current fertility, mortality and immigration trends, the search for a new immigration policy, the impact of the baby boom generation on the population's age structure and the problems this creates, and recent shifts in population distribution and in the country's ethnic and linguistic makeup. The population policy proposals evolved thus far involve to a great extent the use of immigration as a lever for achieving given population objectives.     

New strategies for slowing population growth

Growth of world population over the next 100 years, until the year 2100, will produce an estimated 11.5 billion people. The past focus on reducing rapid population growth exclusively through family planning has not been sufficient. Population policy needs to be broadened to include health care, education, and poverty reduction. The population policy recommendations of Population Council Vice-President John Bongaarts and Senior Associate Judith Bruce were to reduce unwanted pregnancies by expanding services that promote reproductive choice and better health, to reduce the demand for large families by creating favorable conditions for small families, and to invest in adolescents. The Population Council 1994 publication "Population Growth and Our Caring Capacity" outlined these issues. Another similar article by John Bongaarts appeared in the journal "Science" in 1994. In developing countries, excluding China, about 25% of all births are unwanted; 25 million abortions are performed for unwanted pregnancies. The provision of comprehensive family planning programs will go a long way toward achieving a reduction in unwanted pregnancies. In addition, changes are needed in male control over female sexuality and fertility and in cultural beliefs that are obstacles to use of contraception. Stabilization of population at 2 children per family will not occur unless there is a desire for small families. In most less developed countries, large family sizes are preferred. Governments have an opportunity to adopt policies that reduce economic and social risks of having small families. This can be accomplished through the widespread education of children, a reduction in infant and child mortality, improvement in the economic and social and legal status of women, and provision of equitable gender relations in marriage and child rearing. The rights of children to be wanted, planned, and adequately cared for need to be supported. These aforementioned measures will help to reduce fertility, provide support for small families, and justify investment in social development. Population momentum will keep population growing for some time even with replacement level fertility. Investment in adolescents through enhancement of self-esteem and promotion of later childbearing can lengthen the span between generations and slow population momentum. Population policies will be more effective when human rights are protected.     

Prospects for sustainable development: The significance of population growth

There is nothing static about the notion of optimum population. For any given country, region or the world, the optimum population, or maximum acceptable population, depends on a host of related factors: aspirations of a material kind, the state of the environment, the ability of the economy to provide food, shelter, transport, services, consumer durables and other needs. Many countries, such as the U.K., while today enjoying a reasonable standard of living, may not in fact be living within their carrying capacities. The relation between population and development is a dynamic one. Where the trends established by past and current policies are potentially unsustainable, then there is the risk that population levels may compromise the prospects of maintaining living standards and attaining environmental objectives.This paper draws on the recent world modelGlobEcco, to explore the implications of alternative population growth rates for the future of both the industrialised and developing regions of the world. The model is based on ECCO (Evolution of Capital Creation—previously Carrying Capacity—Options): a new integrative procedure which can test out strategies, technologies and rates of population growth aimed at satisfying both economic and environmental aspirations over the long term.     

Curbing population growth: lessons from India

India was 1 of the 1st countries to establish a national population policy program to reduce the heavy social and economic burden of rampant population growth. The 1985 US Agency for International Development survey highlights 3 measures that could contribute significantly to the success of population policy and family planning goals: 1) increase the age at marriage for women, 2) lengthen the interval between births, and 3) improve communications. The younger a girl's age at marriage 1) the younger she is likely to get pregnant, 2) the more babies she can have over her lifetime, and 3) the higher the country's population growth rate. The answer to short birth intervals is childspacing through contraceptive methods. The Indian government has already begun to retrain its health workers and other functionaries to enhance their role as communicators. This should do much to counter the attitudes, practices, and lack of knowledge that contribute to India's population growth.     

The optimum growth rate for population reconsidered

This article gives exact general conditions for the existence of an interior optimum growth rate for population in the neoclassical two-generations-overlapping model. In an economy where high (low) growth rates of population lead to a growth path that is efficient (inefficient), there always exists an interior optimum growth rate for population. In all other cases, there exists no interior optimum. The Serendipity Theorem, however, does, in general, not hold in an economy with government debt. Moreover, the growth rate for population that leads an economy with debt to a golden rule allocation can never be optimal.      

On the momentum of population growth

If age-specific birth rates drop immediately to the level of bare replacement the ultimate stationary number of a population will be given by (9): $$\left( {{\textstyle{{b\mathop e\limits^ \bullet {}_0} \over {r\mu }}}} \right)\left( {\frac{{R_0 - 1}}{{R_0 }}} \right)$$ multiplied by the present number, where b is the birth rate, r the rate of increase, \(\mathop e\limits^ \bullet _0 \) the expectation of life, and R ₀ the Net Reproduction Rate, all before the drop in fertility, and μ the mean age of childbearing afterwards. This expression is derived in the first place for females on the stable assumption; extension to both sexes is provided, and comparison with real populations shows the numerical error to be small where fertility has not yet started to drop. The result (9) tells how the lower limit of the ultimate population depends on parameters of the existing population, and for values typical of underdeveloped countries works out to about 1. 6. If a delay of 15 years occurs before the drop of the birth rate to replacement the population will multiply by over 2. 5 before attaining stationarity. The ultimate population actually reached will be higher insofar as death rates continue to improve. If stability cannot be assumed the ultimate stationary population is provided by the more general expression (7), which is still easier to calculate than a detailed projection.     

Managed growth and optimum population: Irreconcilable concepts

Managed growth is a politically popular rallying point which offends no faction by insisting upon nonnegotiable limits. Subscribers to this philosophy focus upon short-run accommodations to growth which apparently mitigate its physical consequences. Managed growthers react to longterm numerical projections with rejection, if not outright hostility. They may be more amenable to quality-of-life rationales for population limitation evolving from the biophilia hypothesis and ecopsychology. These theories claim that our species needs to exist in proximity to untrammelled wilderness and a natural environment for psychic health and creativity.     

Elementary models for population growth and distribution analysis

A version of the Lotka-Volterra interaction model is adapted to describe population growth and migration processes in a two-region system. The regions are identified as a metropolis and its non-metropolitan hinterland. Several conditions on growth and migration regimes are imposed. The time behavior of the systems are analyzed, noting especially situations where total depopulation or population explosion eventually occur in one or both populations. Neither growth control nor migration control alone results in a condition of long-run stability in both regions. If at least a momentary condition of zero growth is achieved in both regions, it is possible to maintain finite populations if each population follows a logistic natural growth process and migration flow is proportional to the volume of interaction. It is necessary also that the natural increase limitation is strong relative to migration rates. This result holds even if one population has a net migration advantage over the other.     

A stochastic computer model for simulating population growth

Summary A model is described for investigating the interactions of age-specific birth and death rates, age distribution and density-governing factors determining the growth form of single-species populations. It employs Monte Carlo techniques to simulate the births and deaths of individuals while density-governing factors are represented by simple algebraic equations relating survival and fecundity to population density. In all respects the model’s behavior agrees with the results of more conventional mathematical approaches, including the logistic model andLotka’s Law, which predicts a relationship betwen age-specific rates, rate of increase and age distribution. Situations involving exponential growth, three different age-independent density functions affecting survival, three affecting fecundity and their nine combinations were tested. The one function meeting the assumptions of the logistic model produced a logistic growth curve embodying the correct values orr _m andK. The others generated sigmoid curves to which arbitrary logistic curves could be fitted with varying success. Because of populational time lags, two of the functions affecting fecundity produced overshoots and damped oscillations during the initial approach to the steady state. The general behavior of age-dependent density functions is briefly explored and a complex example is described that produces population fluctuations by an egg cannibalism mechanism similar to that found in the flour beetleTribolium. The model is free of inherent time lags found in other discrete time models yet these may be easily introduced. Because it manipulates separate individuals, the model may be combined readily with the Monte Carlo simulation models of population genetics to study eco-genetic phenomena.     

Nuptiality and population growth

In the European historical experience, nuptiality patterns played a very significant role in the development of low fertility. Late marriage and widespread celibacy provided one of the mechanisms by which age-specific fertility rates were brought to low levels in the populations of Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Europe on the other hand, where marriage customarily occurred earlier and was more nearly universal, a somewhat slower fertility transition was achieved through a reduction in marital fertility — without any drastic accompanying nuptiality change. Populations of developing countries, however, commonly exhibit nuptiality patterns characterized by a still higher incidence and a considerably younger age-pattern of marriage than even the earliest observed schedule from Eastern Europe. With few exceptions, little work has been done to date to examine the implications of these very early and universal marriage schedules for fertility in general and for the growth of these populations in particular.¹ We have therefore tried to analyse the impact of nuptiality on the fertility and growth of a series of populations from developing nations where extra-marital fertility is negligible. Populations in which the prevalence of cohabitation by age is not well documented by existing marital-status data (mainly those in Latin America and tropical Africa) are excluded from this analysis; an attempt will be made in later work, however, to extend the analysis to these populations.     

Nuptiality and population growth

Abstract In the European historical experience, nuptiality patterns played a very significant role in the development of low fertility. Late marriage and widespread celibacy provided one of the mechanisms by which age-specific fertility rates were brought to low levels in the populations of Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Europe on the other hand, where marriage customarily occurred earlier and was more nearly universal, a somewhat slower fertility transition was achieved through a reduction in marital fertility - without any drastic accompanying nuptiality change. Populations of developing countries, however, commonly exhibit nuptiality patterns characterized by a still higher incidence and a considerably younger age-pattern of marriage than even the earliest observed schedule from Eastern Europe. With few exceptions, little work has been done to date to examine the implications of these very early and universal marriage schedules for fertility in general and for the growth of these populations in particular.(1) We have therefore tried to analyse the impact of nuptiality on the fertility and growth of a series of populations from developing nations where extra-marital fertility is negligible. Populations in which the prevalence of cohabitation by age is not well documented by existing marital-status data (mainly those in Latin America and tropical Africa) are excluded from this analysis; an attempt will be made in later work, however, to extend the analysis to these populations.     

Polygyny and the rate of population growth

Summary The roots, motives and feasibility of practising polygyny in societies with a balanced sex structure and the effect of polygyny on the rate of population growth are considered. High demand for labour combined with limited supply over the last several centuries, had been conducive to the evolution of a polygynous nuptiality pattern. The unprecedentedly high rates of population growth during the last several decades combined with progressive economic development have led to a change in the role of the labour factor and consequently diminished its impact upon polygyny. Polygyny is feasible because of a sex-age differential at first marriage, which enables younger cohorts of women to enter the marriage market, and thus results in a very early age at first marriage and universal incidence of marriage among women. A very young pattern of nuptiality inevitably evolves under polygyny, which tends to raise the rate of population growth. No significant variation in fertility between polygynous and monogamous women was found but substantial gaps in standards of living, child mortality, and educational attainment were noted for polygynous households. The findings imply that during the transition from polygyny to monogamy family size will tend to diminish, although initially fertility may not decline concurrently with changing socio-economic status. The most important effects on the rate of population growth thus result from the increase in age at first marriage and declining proportions of ever married women.     

A stochastic version of the malthusian trap model: Consequences for the empirical relationship between economic growth and population growth in LDC's

A stochastic version of the Malthusian trap model relating the growth rate of income per capita to the population growth rate of a given country is described. This model is applied to the a priori evaluation of the cross‐sectional correlation between these two growth rates under two additional assumptions: i) the relations in the model at national levels include country‐specific and time‐invariant random components, and ii) these growth rates are measured with a certain degree of temporal aggregation. It is shown that these two assumptions can explain near‐zero correlations between the two growth rates even if there exist a strongly negative effect of population growth on economic growth. However it is not clear whether these assumptions fully explain such insignificant correlations. Indeed, the implementation of the model is complicated by the structural shifts which are likely to occur in the equations over the course of the demographic transition.     

A stochastic version of the Malthusian Trap Model: consequences for the empirical relationship between economic growth and population growth in LDC's

A stochastic version of the Malthusian trap model relating the growth rate of income per capita to the population growth rate of a given country is described. This model is applied to the a priori evaluation of the cross-sectional correlation between these 2 growth rates under 2 additional assumptions: 1) the relations in the model at national levels include country-specific and time-invariant random components, and 2) these growth rates are measured with a certain degree of temporal aggregation. It is shown that these 2 assumptions can explain near-0 correlations between the 2 growth rates even if there exist a strongly negative effect of population growth on economic growth. However, it is not clear whether these assumptions fully explain such insignificant correlations. Indeed, the implementation of the model is complicated by the structural shifts which are likely to occur in the equations over the course of the demographic transition.     

Kenya's record population growth: a dilemma of development

The causes and implications of Kenya's 4% rate of natural increase and fertility rate of 8.1 births per woman were examined. Attention was directed to the following: pronatalist pressures; inadvertent pronatalist impact of development; women's education and employment and fertility; population growth and pressures; mortality decline and population growth; fertility levels and differentials; fertility desires; the family planning program; and family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practice. Kenya's development success has worked to push up the population growth rate. Improved health care and nutrition halved infant mortality from 160 to 87 deaths/1000 live births between 1958 and 1977 and a marked increase in primary school enrollment may be factors in the birthrate increase to 53/1000 population. At this time fertility is highest among women with 1-4 years of education. The 1977-1978 Kenya Fertility Survey showed that only 5.8% of married women were using modern contraception, indicating that the national family planning program, established in 1967, has made little progress. Program difficulties have included shortages of staff, supplies and easily accessible clinic as well as an almost universal desire on the part of Kenyans for families of at least 7 children. Children are viewed as essential to survival and status to the rural population.     

World population projections: alternative paths to zero growth

This article discusses Frejka's analysis of alternative paths to zero population growth. A net reproduction rate (NRR) of 1 is a vital step in reaching zero growth, but because of age distribution variances, it does not necessarily represent zero growth. The projections described here include: 1)the immediate path of achieving NRR of 1 in 1970-1975: 2)rapid path of an NRR of 1 in 2000-2005: and 3)slow path of NRR of 1 in 2040-2045. The population of the world in the year 2000 would be respectively: 5,700,000,000; 6,000000,000; and 7,000,000,000. Zero growth would be reached in 2000 for the immediate path; in 2100 with a population of 8,000,000,000 in the rapid path; and in 2045 with a population of 15,000,000,000. Individual projections are also given for several countries on different continents.     

The optimum growth rate for population under critical-level utilitarianism

We characterize optimal consumption, capital, and population growth of a production economy under critical-level utilitarianism. First, we show that neither classical utilitarianism nor average utilitarianism can avoid a corner solution for the population growth rate, in that under the former, population grows at the maximum speed (the so-called repugnant conclusion) while under the latter, it grows at the minimum. Second, we show that critical level utilitarianism yields an interior solution for the population growth rate provided the critical level belongs to a positive, open interval. Finally, we characterize the transition to the steady state and perform comparative dynamics analysis.     

Five recommendations for controlling population growth in China]

The rapid population growth rate (2% annually from 1949 to 1978) caused great difficulties for China's national economy because it increased the burden of families, communities, and government. It caused employment problems and slowed increases in living standards and educational levels. The best way to control population growth is based on a combination of political education and effective economic measures. The recommendations are: 1) coordinate employment, food rationing, salaries, bonuses, health treatment, age and condition of retirement, preschool care and education with family planning programs, maintain the elderly's living standard, and give preference to childless and single child families; 2) educate people about family planning and incorporate population growth and family planning into political and economics courses in high school and college; 3) incorporate population control into national economic plans; 4) prohibit families with 3 children and advocate 1 child per couple; and 5) establish a permanent population committee to plan, develop, and implement population policies and related research.     

Utilitarian tradeoff between population growth and income growth

Utilitarian social welfare functions were devised for a world with a fixed population. With endogenous population, Edgeworth conjectured that the Benthamite principle of maximizing total utility (classical utilitarianism) would lead to a larger population size and a lower standard of living than the Millian principle of maximizing per capita utility (average utilitarianism). One objection to the Benthamite criterion was that its application to a world with finite resources often implied large population size in conjunction with an embarrassingly low average standard of living. In a static environment with altruistic parents, this may not be warranted. In a growth situation, this criticism is even less likely to be supported. This paper extends the comparison of classical and average utilitarianism from a static to a dynamic and endogenously growing economy. Using a stylised endogenous growth framework, it confirms that the Benthamite population growth rate exceeds the Millian growth rate. In terms of the rate of growth of per capita income, the reverse is true. Having the standard of living often increasing under the Benthamite criterion, our results thereby depart significantly from the repugnant conclusion levelled against classical utilitarianism.We would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.