Skip to main content

TIL we have reached "peak child" some years ago. The number of children in the world is not increasing anymore and global fertility is trending downwards


Many people don't know about the enormous progress most countries have made in recent decades - or maybe the media hasn't told them. But with the following five facts everyone can upgrade their world view.

1. Fast population growth is coming to an end

It's a largely untold story - gradually, steadily the demographic forces that drove the global population growth in the 20th Century have shifted. Fifty years ago the world average fertility rate - the number of babies born per woman - was five. Since then, this most important number in demography has dropped to 2.5 - something unprecedented in human history - and fertility is still trending downwards. It's all thanks to a powerful combination of female education, access to contraceptives and abortion, and increased child survival.

The demographic consequences are amazing. In the last decade the global total number of children aged 0-14 has levelled off at around two billion, and UN population experts predict that it is going to stay that way throughout this century. That's right: the amount of children in the world today is the most there will be! We have entered into the age of Peak Child! The population will continue to grow as the Peak Child generation grows up and grows old. So most probably three or four billion new adults will be added to the world population - but then in the second half of this century the fast growth of the world population will finally come to an end.

2. The "developed" and "developing" worlds have gone

Fifty years ago we had a divided world.

There were two types of countries - "developed" and "developing" - and they differed in almost every way. One type of country was rich and the other poor. One had small families, the other large families. One had long life expectancy, the other short. One was politically powerful, the other was politically weak. And between these two groups, in the middle, there was hardly anyone.
So much has changed, especially in the last decade, that the countries of the world today defy all attempts to classify them into only two groups. So many of the formerly "developing" group of countries have been catching up that the countries now form a continuum. From those nations at the top of the health and wealth league, like Norway and Singapore, to the poorest nations torn by civil war, like DR Congo and Somalia, and at every point in between, there are now countries right along the socio-economic spectrum. And most of the world's people live in the middle. Brazil, Mexico, China, Turkey, Thailand, and many countries like them, are now in most ways more similar to the best-off than the worst-off. Half the world's economy - and most of the world's economic growth - now lies outside Western Europe and North America.

Read Full Content : bbc.com



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top social tech firms urged to step up online abuse fightback

The top tech companies are talking to grassroots organisations across the globe to organise a fightback on their platforms against online abuse, hate speech, misogyny and stalking. The famous social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google are reaching out to women’s groups, NGOs and communities in Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East as the scale of abuse online continues to increase. So these attempts to foster a (counter-speech) movement to challenge the violent misogyny, racism, threats, intimidation and abuse that flood social media platforms have prompted some of the communities they are trying to empower to question whether they are ducking their own responsibilities. A fomous actor said, of the End Violence against Women coalition,  ( Any moves by social media companies to support, encourage and empower individuals and groups to resist and counter abuse is very welcome ). So the facebook’s US-based head of global safety, Antigone Davis, has recently overseen a series...

Instagram unveils new logo, but it's not quite picture perfect | TheNews Linzer

Photo sharing app unveils new sunset-coloured logo and a sleeker in-app look, but opinion is mixed Instagram, the photo sharing app owned by Facebook, responsible for such cultural highlights as hot-dog legs, The Fat Jewish memes and Rich Kids of, well, Instagram, has debuted a new logo. The previous one, a retro-looking camera, and one of the most recognisable tech logos out there, has been replaced by a background swirl of sunset colours (orange, yellow, pink, purple) and a white outline of a camera. As if the camera was murdered, and chalk was drawn around its body. Murdered at sundown. Here it is: The new logo was announced via a blog post, a longer post on Medium from head of design, Ian Spalter, and also a short introductory film. The kind that is usually intensely annoying, but actually this one is quite cute (warning though: the end has a lot of flashing and intense colours). Continue reading... Published By - Theguardian.com- Tech News, Politics news, UK and world politic...

Over 40M people of Irish descent are in the United States, 8x more than the population of Ireland

The Irish people (Irish: Muintir na hÉireann or Na hÉireannaigh) are a nation and ethnic group native to the island of Ireland, who share a common Irish ancestry, identity and culture. Ireland has been inhabited for about 9,000 years according to archaeological studies (see Prehistoric Ireland). For most of Ireland's recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaelic people (see Gaelic Ireland). Anglo-Normans conquered parts of Ireland in the 12th century, while England's 16th/17th century (re)conquest and colonization of Ireland brought a large number of English and Lowland Scots to parts of the island, especially the north. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland (an independent state), and the smaller Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom). The people of Northern Ireland hold various national identities; including Irish, Northern Irish, British, or some combination thereof. The Irish have their own customs, language, music, dance, sports, cuisine,...