8 billion humans – A story of hope and stride for equality
The discussions on population revolve around
the causes and impact of changes in its size, structure and composition. In India,
the interrelated issues of gender are also discussed owing to an imbalance in the
child-sex ratio. The early thoughts revolve
around an over-populated world, notions around extreme population growth, and
advocacy of stringent population control. We tend to imagine ‘certain’ people in
‘some sections of society who have 4-5-6 children as the reason for
overpopulation. These could be African countries or disadvantaged Indian
populations like rural, poor, Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims. Against these
notions, one needs to reflect on very basic questions viz. a) why do people
have babies? b) how many people are too
many? and c) Is inequality, high childhood mortality, and lack of social security
in old age the causes of high fertility?
As the world is poised to reach the landmark of 8 billion people on
November 15, 2022, answers to these questions may help us change our
perspectives towards complex interactions of health, population, development,
and gender.
It took the entire human history till 1800 or
so for the world to become one billion. It took another 130 years to become 2
billion. The period between the 1930s – 1960s saw a rapid rise in population.,
and despite massive deaths during the second world war, the population
increased from 2 to 3 billion in just 33 years. The peak growth of population came
as the world added another billion in just 15 years and became 4 billion by
1975. Thereafter, the world has added a billion every twelve years and doubled
its population in four and a half decades. But, the pattern in these changes
has a story of hope, as against popular misbelief of despair due to the overcrowded
world. When the world was about 1 billion, the average number of babies per
woman/ family was 6, globally. When the
world was around 3 billion, this dropped to around 5 babies per woman. Till
then, fewer women were producing more babies, on average. In the last fifty years, when the world
population grew rapidly and doubled, babies per woman dropped to around 2. The recent growth in the size of the population
is merely because of population momentum - there are so many women producing
fewer babies than ever. As the population grew, the world has also become a far
better place with equitable opportunities and outcomes. This shift is across
the globe, religion, and socio-economic classes, and is not going to reverse because
these decisions emanate from myriad factors like child survival, poverty,
female education, etc. How have these determinants of fertility changed as the world
became 8 billion?
According to an estimate, three-quarters of the
world lived in extreme poverty in 1820, which reduced to around half in the late
1950s when the world was 4 billion, to one-third in the late 1990s when the
world had 6 billion people, and further down to one-eight (around 13%) in 2010s
when the world reached 7 billion. For India, while the population doubled from
64 crores to 130 crores from 1977 to 2020, the share of the population living
in extreme poverty reduced six times from 63% to around 10%. Research across
the world has proved that the higher the education of women, the fewer babies
they produce. For example, Women in Iran – which is a Moslem country, had an
average of 7 children in 1950 when they had average schooling of 0.3 years.
Today, Iranian women on average spend more than 9 years in schools and had an
average of 1.7 children. Child mortality in Iran also reduced drastically from 33%
in 1950 to less than 2% in 2020. India
has also seen similar improvements in total fertility rate (from 5.7 to 2.1
live births per woman), child mortality (from 28% to 3%), and average years of
schooling of women of reproductive age (from 0.4 years to 5.6 years) since its
independence.
As the world became wealthier, healthier, and
better educated, it has become more gender equal resulting in women spending
more time in education, delaying their first pregnancy, limiting birth, and
becoming part of the labour force for a few decades. While advancements in
agriculture and health help the world beat the fears of overpopulation in the 19th
and 20th centuries, the increased role of women in the economy
through progressive social norms would quell the population alarmism in the 21st
century.
These positive trends are expected to continue
at varied paces across the world as they are the output of intricate
interaction of 4S i.e. Self, Society, Science, and System. Science has made strides in developing
medicines, vaccines, contraception technologies, and information and
communication technologies to reach the masses. The system in the form of
pro-poor governance has allowed the interaction between science, self and
society to flourish in the overall process of development. Riding on the
benefits of scientific education and governmental efforts, societies have
evolved to question and alter traditional outlooks for a more inclusive and
liberal environment for the absorption of scientific ideas and innovations
enabling the individuals (the self) to make informed and productive choices
without getting influenced by any propaganda and biases. The story of population growth and decline in the
average number of children per woman is a story of tremendous synergistic
progress in the four Ss.
As the world becomes 8 billion, we must
appreciate the strides it has made over the last century and ponder over continuing
the story of hope through meaningful investments in the 4S.
Comments
Post a Comment