Geopolitical Aspects of Population in the Twenty‐First Century

Over the second half of the twentieth century rapid population growth in the less developed countries has redrawn the global demographic map. Many once‐poor countries have also experienced strong economic growth, which in combination with the demographic change has yielded marked shifts in the world's economic balance, with far‐reaching geopolitical implications. At the same time, low fertility in much of the developed world presages a future of population shrinkage, accompanied by pronounced population aging. In per capita terms, the economic advantages of the developed countries will likely persist for many years, but their actual and potential falls in population may accentuate their loss of relative economic power and eventually lead to marginalization of their international standing and influence. Preventing population shrinkage will be an urgent task for them, requiring either large‐scale immigration (likely to be ruled out) or raising the birth rate. Existing pro‐family policies have had at best modest effects on fertility levels. Two novel approaches are described that would plausibly have greater impact. One would counteract the disproportionate influence of older voters in the electorate by granting voting rights to all citizens, allowing custodial parents to vote on behalf of their children. The second would reform the public pension system to reestablish the link between the financial security of retired persons and the number of children they have raised to productive adulthood.     

The debate over low fertility in the popular press: A cross-national comparison, 1998–1999

Aspects of below-replacement fertility have long been debated among professional demographers. This paper describes the corresponding popular debate about low fertility by analyzing 437 newspaper and magazine articles from eleven developed countries during 1998 and 1999. Despite the diversity in the national debates due to different socioeconomic, political and demographic backgrounds, our study finds important commonalties in the way low fertility is debated: First, countries emphasize consequences and potential interventions rather than causes in their popular debates over low fertility. Second, our study reveals that the popular press discusses low fertility as a serious concern with mostly negative implications, despite the fact that many of the causes of low fertility are associated with social and economic progress. Third, the variety of issues and perspectives revealed in the popular debate, while cohesive in general ways, invites a role for demographers in informing an accurate public discussion of low fertility, which will help form the most appropriate policy outcomes.     

Projections of the ethnic minority populations of the United Kingdom 2006-2056

The ethnic minority populations in the UK are growing substantially through immigration, a youthful age structure, and in some cases relatively high fertility. Their diverse demographic and socioeconomic characteristics have attracted considerable academic and policy attention, especially insofar as those distinctive characteristics have persisted in the generations born in the UK. No official projections of the UK ethnic populations have been published since 1979. This article provides projections to 2056 and beyond of 12 ethnic groups. Given overall net immigration and vital rates as assumed in the office for National Statistics 2008-based Principal Projection, and the ethnic characteristics estimated here, the ethnic minority populations (including the Other White) would increase from 13 percent of the UK population in 2006 to 28 percent by 2031 and 44 percent by 2056, and to about half the 0-4 age group in 2056. Alternative projections assume various lower levels of immigration. Possible implications of projected changes are discussed.     

A critical disjuncture? The culmination of post-World War II socio-demographic and economic trends in the United States

This essay examines the consequences of major social, demographic and economic trends in the United States since World War II. These include rising women’s employment, the ‘Baby Boom’, the outlines of the so-called ‘new’ immigration, the increasing racial and ethnic diversity deriving from that immigration, the economic contexts in which recent US immigration has occurred, and recent technologically-induced features of global work flows that will condition immigration’s future reception and effects. Women’s wartime work experiences, together with their economic opportunities in the ensuing decades, boosted married women’s autonomy and domestic leverage. Rising economic prosperity encouraged marriage and family formation even as growing employment among married women of childbearing age made having and taking care of large families more difficult. World War II also spawned the expansion of migration to the United States, which in turn converted the country from a largely biracial society with a sizable white majority and a small black minority into a multiracial, multiethnic society with greater racial and ethnic boundary crossing and increasingly blurred colour lines. A major issue is whether currently changing economic conditions and social institutions will support and strengthen such tendencies or instead weaken them. Without robust job growth, the demographic legacy of the baby boom, which now involves ever-rising numbers of retired people, will be more difficult to support, especially given the country’s current fiscal deficits. Greater earnings inequality and weak job growth may also poison the climate for further immigration to the US, thus diminishing the chance that newcomers can continue contributing to the dissolution of fault lines among racial-ethnic groups and to the resolution of periodic labour shortages.     

American political affiliation, 2003-43: a cohort component projection

The recent rise in identification with American political parties has focused interest on the long-term dynamics of party support. Liberal commentators cite immigration and youth as forces that will produce a natural advantage for the Democrats in the future, while conservative writers highlight the importance of high fertility amongst Republicans in securing growth. These opinions are not based on demographic analysis. We addressed this omission by undertaking the first ever cohort component projection (up to 2043) of populations by American party allegiance, based on survey and census data. On current trends, we predict that American partisanship will change much less than the nation's ethnic composition because the parties are similar in age structure. Nevertheless, our projections suggest that the Democrats will gain 2-3 per cent more support than the Republicans by 2043, mainly through immigration, although the higher fertility of Republicans may eventually offset that advantage.     

The Death of the West: An alternative view

Much has been written about the ‘Death of the West’, a demise threatened by the low level of reproduction in Western countries. That fate is contrasted unfavourably with the rapid growth of the populations and economies of less developed countries, and the prospect of the numerical and political marginalization of the formerly dominant developed world. We believe that trends in European fertility have been misunderstood and that, with effort and some pain, their consequences for age structure are manageable. Many European societies also enjoy the advantages of demographic and social maturity, the resilience of established consensual democratic institutions, the rule of law, and civil society. The sizes of China and India raise problems of resource sustainability and vulnerability to climate change. China risks falling into a low-fertility trap, reinforced by urban working conditions unfriendly to family formation. Traditional patriarchal and familist cultures may depress fertility rates to unhelpfully low levels in other less developed countries.     

Different features and conditions of the fertility transition in the developed countries and the developing countries]

Differences between the demographic transition experienced by developed countries and that currently being experienced by developing countries are first discussed. The author then stresses the need for developing countries to lower fertility in order to foster socioeconomic development, rather than waiting for economic development to bring about reductions in fertility.     

Family planning and population control in developing countries

This essay aims at a critical analysis of the major assumptions of the family planning movement and their implications for population and development policy in the less developed countries. A neo-Malthusian perspective, in which a reduction of the current high rates of population growth is considered to be a necessary condition for economic development in the less developed countries, is dominant among professionals in family planning. Population control has come to be regarded as a kind of“leading sector” in the development process. The position taken in this paper is that the contention that fertility reduction is crucial to short term economic development is not substantiated empirically and represents a distorted view of the economic development process. Nor is there good evidence that demographic modernization can move far ahead of other aspects of modernization. Skepticism about the success of family planning tends to lead to advocacy of alternative methods of population control which are generally beyond the economic, administrative, and political capacities of the less developed countries and are sometimes repressive in tone. The family planning movement, in overstressing the independent contributions of fertility reduction programs, has tended to underplay conditions such as improved health, lowered mortality, and altered opportunity structure which make these contributions possible at all.     

Immigration to the UK from High‐Fertility Countries: Intergenerational Adaptation and Fertility Convergence

The fertility of immigrants' children increasingly shapes the ethnic diversity of the population in Western Europe. However, few data are available on the fertility patterns of immigrants and their offspring. This article provides new fertility estimates of immigrants and immigrants' children by ethnic group in the United Kingdom that may provide better‐informed fertility assumptions for future population projection models. The impact of migration‐specific tempo effects on the period TFR of immigrants is analyzed. Among the results, intergenerational fertility transitions strongly contribute both to fertility convergence between ethnic groups and to fertility “assimilation” or “intergenerational adaptation” to the UK mainstream childbearing behavior. Ethnic fertility convergence, particularly marked for populations originating from high‐fertility countries, reflects in part decreasing fertility in sending countries and in part intergenerational adaptation to the UK mainstream. Higher educational enrollment of the daughters of immigrants may partly explain their relatively lower fertility.     

Diverging Demography: Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Contributions to U.S. Population Redistribution and Diversity

The substantial growth and geographic dispersion of Hispanics is among the most important demographic trends in recent U.S. demographic history. Our county-level study examines how widespread Hispanic natural increase and net migration has combined with the demographic change among non-Hispanics to produce an increasingly diverse population. This paper uses U.S. Census Bureau data and special tabulations of race/ethnic specific births and deaths from NCHS to highlight the demographic role of Hispanics as an engine of new county population growth and ethnoracial diversity across the U.S. landscape. It highlights key demographic processes—natural increase and net migration—that accounted for 1990–2010 changes in the absolute and relative sizes of the Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations. Hispanics accounted for the majority of all U.S. population growth between 2000 and 2010. Yet, Hispanics represented only 16 % of the U.S. population in 2010. Most previous research has focused on Hispanic immigration; here, we examine how natural increase and net migration among both the Hispanic and non-Hispanic population contribute to the nation’s growing diversity. Indeed, the demographic impact of rapid Hispanic growth has been reinforced by minimal white population growth due to low fertility, fewer women of reproductive age and growing mortality among the aging white population America’s burgeoning Hispanic population has left a large demographic footprint that is magnified by low and declining fertility and increasing mortality among America’s aging non-Hispanic population.     

The UN Population Division on Replacement Migration

The most salient demographic trend pictured by the influential set of population projections prepared by the Population Division of the United Nations (a unit in the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs) is the continuing substantial increase—albeit at a declining rate—of the global population during the coming decades. According to the “medium” variant of the most recent (1998) revision of these projections, between 2000 and 2050 the expected net addition to the size of the world population will be some 2.85 billion, a figure larger than that of the total world population as recently as the mid‐1950s. All of this increase will occur in the countries currently classified as less developed; in fact, as a result of their anticipated persistent below‐replacement levels of fertility, the more developed regions as a whole would experience declining population size beginning about 2020, and would register a net population loss of some 33 million between 2000 and 2050. A report prepared by the UN Population Division and released on 21 March 2000 addresses some of the implications of the changes in population size and age structure that low‐fertility countries will be likely to experience. The 143‐page report, issued under the eyecatching title Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?, highlights the expected magnitude of these changes by the imaginative device of answering three hypothetical questions. The answer to each of these questions is predicated on the assumption that some specified demographic feature of various country or regional populations would be maintained at the highest level that feature would exhibit, in the absence of international migration, in the United Nations' medium population projections (as revised in 1998) during the period 1995–2050. The selected demographic features are total population size, the size of the working‐age population (15–64 years), and the so‐called potential support ratio: the ratio of the working‐age population to the old‐age population (65 years and older). The illustrative device chosen for accomplishing the specified feats of preserving the selected demographic parameters (i.e., keeping them unchanged up to 2050 once their highest value is attained) is international migration. Hence the term “replacement migration.” Given the low levels of fertility and mortality now prevailing in the more developed world (and specifically in the eight countries and the two overlapping regions for which the numerical answers to the above questions are presented in the report), and given the expected future evolution of fertility and mortality incorporated in the UN population projections, the results are predictably startling. The magnitudes of the requisite compensatory migration streams tend to be huge relative both to current net inmigration flows and to the size of the receiving populations; least so in the case of the migration needed to maintain total population size and most so in the case of migration needed to counterbalance population aging by maintaining the support ratio. Reflecting its relatively high fertility and its past and current record of receiving a large influx of international migrants, the United States is a partial exception to this rule. But even for the US to maintain the support ratio at its highest—year 1995—level of 5.21 would require increasing net inmigration more than tenfold. The country, the report states, would have to receive 593 million immigrants between 1995 and 2050, or a yearly average of 10.8 million. The extreme case is the Republic of Korea, where the exercise calls for maintaining a support ratio of 12.6. To satisfy this requirement, Korea, with a current population of some 47 million, would need 5.1 billion immigrants between 1995 and 2050, or an average of 94 million immigrants per year. (In the calculations, the age and sex distribution of migrants is assumed to be the same as that observed in the past in the main immigration countries. The fertility and mortality of immigrants are assumed to be identical with those of the receiving population.) The “Executive Summary” of the report is reproduced below, with the permission of the United Nations. Chapters of the full report set out the issues that prompted the exercise; provide a selective review of the literature; explain the methodology and the assumptions underlying the calculations; and present the detailed results for the eight countries and two regions selected for illustrative purposes. A brief discussion of the implications of the findings concludes the report. As is evident even from the figures just cited, immigration is shown to be at best a modest potential palliative to whatever problems declining population size and population aging are likely to pose to low‐fertility countries. The calculations, however, vividly illustrate that demographic changes will profoundly affect society and the economy, and will require adjustments that remain inadequately appreciated and assessed. The criteria specified in the UN calculations—maintenance of particular demographic parameters at a peak value—of course do not necessarily have special normative significance. Past demographic changes, with respect notably to the age distribution as well as population size, have been substantial, yet they have been successfully accommodated under circumstances of growing prosperity in many countries. But the past may be an imperfect guide in confronting the evolving dynamics of low‐fertility populations. As the report convincingly states, the new demographic challenges will require comprehensive reassessments of many established economic and social policies and programs.     

The Economic Effects of Immigration into the United Kingdom

This article is concerned with the economic effects of immigration. The emphasis is on Britain, but extensive material is also provided on other countries. Since 1997 a new British immigration policy has displaced previous policy aims, which were focused on minimizing settlement. Large-scale immigration is now seen as essential for Britain's economic well-being, and measures have been introduced to increase inflows. The benefits claimed include fiscal advantages, increased prosperity, a ready supply of labor, and improvements to the age structure. Fears that large-scale immigration might damage the interests of unskilled workers are discounted. This article examines these claims. It concludes that the economic consequences of large-scale immigration are mostly minor, negative, or transient, that the interests of more vulnerable sections of the domestic population may well be damaged, and that any economic benefits are unlikely to bear comparison with immigration's probable substantial and permanent demographic and environmental impact. Our claims are in line with those from other developed countries.     

The United States at mid-decade

This report examines the demographic forces at work in the US that will influence the country's future. A profile of the US population in the mid-1990s reveals that the US is the third most populated countries in the world and one of the fastest growing of the industrialized countries. 70% of this growth is due to natural increase and 30% to immigration. The first topic covered in this report, geographic patterns of growth and change, includes a consideration of regional patterns, population growth by state, residential patterns, and the increase in the number of minorities living in suburban areas. The second topic is the changing age structure, which is characterized by an aging of the population and an increase in the number of children. Racial and ethnic diversity is discussed in terms of fastest growing groups, where minorities live, the Native American population, and the impact of this diversity on political participation. Immigration is analyzed to reveal sources and destinations, linguistic diversity, effects on schools and the labor market, and socioeconomic effects. The section on American families focuses on trends in marriage and divorce, types of households and families, and household patterns by race/ethnicity. The last topic looks at the distribution of income and poverty as well as at regional and state differences, race/ethnicity differences, the effects of marital status on income, who constitutes the poor, and how income is distributed. In conclusion, it is noted that America's social and economic future depends upon whether current demographic trends will lead to a fragmented and divisive society or to a stronger nation built upon diversity.     

Planet earth 1984-2034: a demographic vision

In recognition of 1984 as the year of both Orwell's famous futuristic novel and the International Population Conference following up the 1974 World Population Conference, this Bulletin examines the current state of world population and presents the author's speculations on what it might be 50 years from now. World population, now close to 4.8 billion and growing at 1.8%/year, is being shaped by 3 demographic phenomena: prolonged below-replacement fertility in developed nations, perhaps partly in response to the reduced need for workers in the emerging information era; rapid growth despite failing fertility in developing nations, due to earlier rapid mortality decline; and rapid urbanization in developing nations and unprecedented migration from poor to better-off nations. The author's assumptions for nondemographic factors related to population change in the next 50 years are no world war, nuclear or otherwise; global resource adequacy; rapid scientific and technological progress shared equitably; and the demise of capitalism and communism and greatly increased economic aid from advanced to less advanced nations. For 2034 the author envisages nations divided into service/information societies (4% of global population) where immigration balances low fertility to prevent population decline; industrialized nations (38% of total), with fertility close to or at replacement level and growth slowing; developing nations (43%), in sight of replacement level fertility; and least developed nations, with still critical demographic problems but only 15% of the world population. Total population will be 8.03 billion, but growth will be down to 0.8%/year and global zero growth is possible in another 50 years. This relatively optimistic scenario for 2034 will only be possible if mankind acts to see that the stated nondemographic assumptions are borne out.     

Israel's population: the challenge of pluralism

This Bulletin describes the interplay of demographic and sociopolitical processes in Israel since the founding of the state in May 1948 and projects what it might be until the year 2015. Heavy Jewish immigration, especially during the mass immigration of 1948-51, has balanced the high natural increase of Moslems, who comprise the majority of Israeli Arabs, so that the proportion of Jews in Israel's population at the end of 1982 (83% of 4.1 million) was little changed from June 1948 (81% of 806,000). Even with Jewish immigration now low, this proportion is likely to be no lower than 76% in 2015, the Jewish proportion could be only 50% in a Greater Israel as Israel annexes the Occupied Areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip where 1.2 million Arabs now live. Oriental Jews from less developed North African and Asian countries, 15% of Israel's Jewish population in 1984, with their largescale immigration to the mid-1960s and initially higher fertility, have managed to outnumber European-American Jews by 1970. This was an important factor in the 1977 shift of political dominance from the leftwing Labor parties, supported by the better educated, socialist leaning European-American Jews, to the rightwing Likud bloc, espousing economic policies based on more private initiative and Israel's historic rights to Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Western oriented Jews of European or American origin, although still the country's establishment, comprised only 40% of Israel's population by 1981. By 2015, their share is likely to be down to 30% within Israel's present boundaries and would be only 22% of the population of a Greater Israel. First raised by 19th century Zionists in Europe who set off the drive for the reestablishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, the quesions of whether or not Israel will be a Jewish state and remain a Western society will continue salient into the 21st century.     

Demographic Theory: A Long View

This essay argues that demographic theory over the last half‐century has substituted short‐term explanations, often focusing on single demographic events, for long‐term theory. This means not only that the explanations cannot be employed to forecast the situation in the more distant future, but they are inadequate even for short‐term analysis. A basis for a longer‐term theory of fertility transition is proposed, employing the concept of social structure and demographic behavior adjusting, slowly and after a considerable lag, to each of three modes of production. The focus is on the transition from agricultural to industrial production, especially as this is occurring in the most advanced industrial societies. Three major conclusions are drawn. (1) Unanticipated fertility changes over the last 50 years can be incorporated within a single demographic transition theory. (2) Societal and demographic changes are still at an early stage of their transition to full adjustment to industrialization. (3) The trend, associated with women's participation in the work force, toward below‐replacement fertility will continue, but at some stage most governments will probably attempt to raise fertility to replacement level even if the effort is extremely expensive and slows economic growth.     

Women,Demography, and Politics: How Lower Fertility Rates Lead to Democracy

Where connections between demography and politics are examined in the literature, it is largely in the context of the effects of male aspects of demography on phenomena such as political violence. This project aims to place the study of demographic variables’ influence on politics, particularly on democracy, squarely within the scope of political and social sciences, and to focus on the effects of woman-related demographics—namely, fertility rate. I test the hypothesis that demographic variables—female-related predictors, in particular—have an independent effect on political structure. Comparing countries over time, this study finds a growth in democracy when fertility rates decline. In the theoretical framework developed, it is family structure as well as the economic and political status of women that account for this change at the macro and micro levels. Findings based on data for more than 140 countries over three decades are robust when controlling not only for alternative effects but also for reverse causality and data limitations.     

World population stabilisation through Smithian increasing returns to labour: an update

In light of classical political economists’ ideas (especially Smith and Malthus) and more recent theory of demographic transition, Foley (Econ Lett 68:309–317, 2000) constructed a simple integrated population model, which is then used as an alternative tool to project the stabilising level of world population and income level associated with it. This paper is an update of this line of research using more recent empirical evidence. We find the world still exhibits a strong pattern of Smithian increasing returns to scale and most countries’ populations have been stabilising along a convex income–fertility schedule. Our projections suggest that the world population will stabilise at 11.4 billion with per capita income around $12,595 in constant 2005 USD. Unfortunately, the process of world population stabilisation tends to be accompanied with growing global income equality.     

Economic fortunes, ethnic divides, and marriage and fertility in Central Asia: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan compared

Declining marriage and fertility rates following the collapse of state socialism have been the subject of numerous studies in Central and Eastern Europe. More recent literature has focused on marriage and fertility dynamics in the period of post-crisis political stabilization and economic growth. However, relatively little research on marriage and fertility has dealt with the Central Asian part of the post-socialist world. We use survey and published data from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, two multiethnic countries with differing paths of post-crisis recovery, to examine overall and ethnic-specific trends in entry into marriage and fertility. We find that in both countries rates of entry into marriage continued to decline throughout post-crisis years. By contrast, fertility rose, and this rise was greater in the more prosperous Kazakhstan. However, we also detect considerable ethnic variations in fertility trends which we situate within the ethnopolitical and ethnodemographic contexts of both countries.     

Prospects for international migration: Globalization and its discontents

The paper challenges the view that the late twentieth century is the ‘age of migration’. For developing countries, flows of out-migrants are small compared with population growth, although in developed countries the stock of immigrants increased in proportion to the total population between 1965 and 1990. Despite the importance of refugee movement, the main force for international migration is economic. Why do not more people migrate (internally and internationally) to take advantage of potential economic gains? For international migration, one deterrent is institutional barriers against uncontrolled immigration. Different interest groups stand to gain or lose from increased migration. The income-enhancing effects of unhindered international labour migration, measured jointly for sending and receiving countries and by extension globally, should be very large. Even partial liberalization of immigration to industrialized countries would serve developing countries well. In industrialized countries, however, there is concern about the effect of massive labour inflows on the ethnic, religious and cultural composition of the population and its social cohesion. In some countries, migration is leading to greater ethnic mingling; in others there is a recrudescence of nationalistic aspirations for independent statehood with ethnically homogeneous populations, or to preserve the advantages of economically successful subregions.