Dear Colleague:
The United Nations Population Division's population projections continue
to be revised downward as demographic disaster approaches. The
international agency's laudable devotion to honesty is marred by its
unsupported belief that fertility levels will rise in developed countries.
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
9 May 2005
Vol. 7 / No. 17
Death's Wages: UNPD Population Projections Continue to Drop
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
At his press conference April 28, President Bush used some statistics to
demonstrate the need for his Social Security reform plan. "There's a lot
of us getting ready to retire who will be living longer and receiving
greater benefits than the previous generation," he said. "And to compound
the problem, there are fewer people paying into the system. In 1950,
there were 16 workers for every beneficiary; today there are 3.3 workers
for every beneficiary; soon there will be two workers for every
beneficiary. These changes have put Social Security on the path to
bankruptcy."
Forty years of contraception, abortion, feminism, and two-income or
one-parent families have taken their toll. The 105-page Highlights of the
United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: The 2004
Revision outline the demographic crisis overtaking the world, not just the
United States and her collapsing Social Security system.
It's very simple to state: People aren't having enough children to sustain
the long-term economic prosperity of the world or most of its individual
countries. In many cases, particularly in Western Europe and Japan, they
aren't having enough children to ensure the survival of their national
cultures-perhaps not even their nations-into the next century. Pension
and health care systems will just be the first things to break down.
Experts have been predicting dire consequences of world "overpopulation"
for two centuries now, and they have never come true. Now, after decades
of population control, family planning, feminism, and anti-family economic
realignment, rapidly declining fertility levels will inevitably produce
demographic disaster due to the opposite problem.
UNPD has revised its prediction for the world's population in 2050 down to
9.1 billion from the 9.3 billion by 2050 it predicted in its 2000
revision. The world will hit 6.5 billion sometime in July of this year.
UNPD has tended to be candid about the world's coming underpopulation and
aging crises in recent years, and indications are that new UNPD Director
Hania Zlotnik will continue this high-quality devotion to science. But
UNPD does continue to cling to at least one unrealistic assumption. The
new medium variant projection counts on fertility rates rising in
developed countries even though there is no reason to think that they
will. Says the report:
"In developed countries as a whole, fertility is currently 1.56 children
per woman and is projected to increase slowly to 1.84 children per woman
in 2045-2050. In the least developed countries, fertility is 5 children
per woman and is expected to drop by about half, to 2.57 children per
woman by 2045-2050. In the rest of the developing world, fertility is
already moderately low at 2.58 children per woman and is expected to
decline further to 1.92 children per woman by mid-century, thus nearly
converging to the fertility levels by then typical of the developed
world." Replacement rate fertility is 2.1 children per woman in the
absence of major wars, famine, and epidemic.
What justification does UNPD have in saying that fertility levels will
rise in developed countries? Perhaps the agency believes that large-scale
immigration into Western Europe will continue, and that these immigrants
will have so many children that they will raise greatly the total
fertility rate of the entire developed world. UNPD projects a net
migration of about 73 million people into wealthier countries: "Because
deaths are projected to exceed births in the more developed regions by 73
million during 2005-2050, population growth in those regions will largely
be due to international migration." The immigration projections may be
less than some might expect, but remember that fertility rates are
dropping fast in the developing world, too-and the backlash against
large-scale immigration is growing in Western Europe and the United
States.
In any case, UNPD doesn't say. It says it just assumes that fertility
rates everywhere will converge on the number 1.85: "Total fertility in all
countries is assumed to converge eventually toward a level of 1.85
children per woman. However, not all countries reach this level during
the projection period, that is, by 2050." It's hard to foresee social
changes in developed countries that will lead to such a dramatic
turnaround in fertility by 2050.
UNPD predicts that population growth in the developed world has come
almost completely to a standstill: "Almost all growth will take place in
the less developed regions, where today's 5.3 billion population is
expected to swell to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of
the more developed regions will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion."
Developed countries' combined population will remain stable as immigrants
flood in to replace the native populations that are dying off. And dying
off they are: "Fertility levels in the 44 developed countries, which
account for 19% of the world population, are currently very low. All
except Albania have fertility below-replacement level and 15, mostly
located in Southern and Eastern Europe, have reached levels of fertility
unprecedented in human history (below 1.3 children per woman)." Majority
Muslim Albania is the only developed country whose people care enough
about their future to procreate their descendents.
A few developed countries have seen some fertility rate increases over the
past 10-15 years, but not enough to raise them above replacement level.
"Since 1990-1995, fertility decline has been the rule among most developed
countries," says UNPD. "The few increases recorded, such as those in
Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and the United States, have been
small."
UNPD's low variant projection, which historically is more accurate than
the medium variant projection that it holds out as most likely to be
right, estimates a world population of only 7.7 billion by 2050, due to an
estimated total fertility rate 0.5 child less than the projection used in
the medium variant. The developed world will drop to less than 1.1
billion people in that time.
Regardless of what happens in total numbers, dramatic aging of the world's
population, particularly in the developed world, will certainly occur.
Even taking UNPD's higher medium variant numbers, "The primary consequence
of fertility decline, especially if combined with increases in life
expectancy, is population aging, whereby the share of older persons in a
population increases relative to that of younger persons," reports UNPD.
"Globally, the number of persons aged 60 years or over is expected almost
to triple, increasing from 672 million in 2005 to nearly 1.9 billion by
2050. Whereas 6 out of every 10 of those older persons live today in
developing countries, by 2050, 8 out of every 10 will do so. An even more
marked increase is expected in the number of the oldest-old (persons aged
80 years or over): from 86 million in 2005 to 394 million in 2050. In
developing countries, the rise will be from 42 million to 278 million,
indicating that by 2050 most oldest-old will live in the developing
world."
The percentages don't look good, either. "In developed countries, 20% of
today's population is aged 60 years or over, and by 2050 that proportion
is projected to be 32%," says UNPD. "The elderly population in developed
countries has already surpassed the number of children (persons aged
0-14), and by 2050 there will be two elderly persons for every child. In
the developing world, the proportion of the population aged 60 or over is
expected to rise from 8% in 2005 to close to 20% by 2050."
Where will the money to support all these elderly people come from? Who
will pay the rapidly rising health care costs, for example? The problem
in the United States, which is much better off fiscally than almost any
other nation due to its relatively high fertility rate and excellent
economy, is only a fraction of that faced by other nations. Mass
euthanasia of the old and all those unable to work-"useless eaters," in
the Nazis' phrase-could become the world norm.
The wages of birth control, abortion, and feminism is death.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at PRI.
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