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This knowledge gap distorts your view of the world

2019-11-13T17:52:52.957Z


In the developing countries, the population is growing rapidly, soon the space is no longer enough. So many look to the world - but they are wrong. Do you know it better?



Global society

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Let's start this article with two questions. Answer them by clicking or tapping the answers you think are correct:

The knowledge gap

To be beside one of these questions is certainly no shame. And yet there is a deeper problem here: studies show that most people have a wrong picture of the state of the world (Swedish physician and scientist Hans Rosling has spent his entire life studying this topic.) Read an interview with his son here, who continues his heritage). We are systematically underestimating progress in education, poverty reduction and life expectancy. On the other hand, we overestimate dangers.

The impact of these misjudgments can be seen in the questions that were asked in the beginning. Anyone who believes that the number of children is rising worldwide and people in countries like Bangladesh are responsible for a population explosion due to high birth rates has an outdated world view.

But what is right? Is it really true that the time of high birth rates is over? And how does that fit together with the still strong increase in the world's population? Here is the explanation in numbers and graphics:

Yes, the global population is rising sharply, especially since about 1950. Many will have learned in the school still numbers of four, five or six billion earth-dwellers. Meanwhile, we are at 7.7 billion and in the diagram is still no flattening of the curve.

However, according to UN forecasts, growth will slow down in the future and stabilize the number of people in the world around 2100 at roughly eleven billion. Forecasts that are so far forward are, however, usually associated with major statistical uncertainties, which can be seen in the above graph on the gray area.

Looking at the development of the world population by age group, there is an unexpected trend for many. The number of children up to the age of 14 is already almost stable globally today and is estimated at roughly two billion for the year 2100, see the initial question. By contrast, according to Uno forecasts, the number of adults will increase from 5.1 billion today to around 6.5 billion. The number of people over the age of 65 is expected to more than triple.

As far as the number of children per woman is concerned, there has been a remarkable development over the last hundred years. In the pre-industrial era, the birth rate was still just under six children per woman, in the first half of the 20th century then around five. Particularly strong was the decline since the 1970s. Currently, women worldwide receive an average of 2.47 children.

A stable level is said to be 2.1 children per woman, since not all children born reach the fertile age. The UN forecast assumes that this value will be reached around the year 2065.

Accordingly, the birth rate is less responsible for the currently increasing population, but rather a combination of increased life expectancy and the so-called "demographic momentum": the population can only stabilize when the baby boomers of the past decades have completed their family formation. The declining birth rate thus only has a significant delay.

Highly developed countries mostly have a birth rate of less than 2.1 - without immigration, the number of inhabitants is shrinking. In Germany, for example, there would be only 65 million inhabitants without immigration in 2060, compared with 83 million at the end of 2018.

In developing and emerging countries, the situation differs greatly depending on the region. In the Arab world, for example, in India, in Southeast Asia and in the northern and southern parts of Africa, the birth rate is usually less than 2.5, sometimes up to three children per woman. Higher birth rates exist almost exclusively in West, Central and East Africa.

However, it also affects very populous states such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Due to the combination of large numbers of inhabitants and high population growth, these are currently making a decisive contribution to the predicted population growth.

A look at history reveals how much the prosperity of a society and the birth rate are related. The richer a country becomes, the fewer children the people get.

In the following diagram, the countries - symbolized by dots - tend to wander from left to right and down over the decades. This shows that as household income increases, women receive fewer children. As soon as people can regulate old-age provision differently than with as many new offspring as possible, the birth rate moves quite quickly to a stable level.

In Europe, this process started the earliest worldwide. It was gradually followed by North and South America, Asia and finally Africa. China, with its one-child policy, fell below the threshold of 2.1 children per woman as early as 1992. Within 40 years, Bangladesh succeeded in reducing the birth rate from 6.8 (1975) to less than 2.1 (2016). Most African countries are currently in the middle of this development.

What can be learned from this?

As far as the development of the population is concerned, it can be said: yes, the number of people in the world is expected to increase by several billion. And yet the picture of the population explosion is no longer correct. Humanity is on the way to a stable population, but the effects of this development are only noticeable after a while.

more on the subject

Birth rateNo, there is no population explosion in India

It looks similar in many other areas of global development. Most people are no longer poor but belong to the modest middle class, the average life expectancy worldwide is 70 years and the annual number of victims of natural disasters has halved over the past hundred years.

You can learn this by looking at the statistics or visiting distant countries. If you want to question your world view from your couch, you can read the posthumously published book "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling.

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Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Roennlund, Ola Rosling
Factfulness: How we learn to see the world as it really is

Publishing company:

Ullstein hardcover

Pages:

400

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Maybe this will help to close a knowledge gap and not only gain a more realistic, but also a more positive picture of the world.

This article is part of the project Global Society, for which our reporters report from four continents. The project is long-term and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What is the project Global Society?

Under the title Global Society, reporters from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe will be reporting on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development. The reportages, analyzes, photo galleries, videos and podcasts appear in the Politics Department of SPIEGEL. The project is long-term and will be supported over three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Are the journalistic contents independent of the foundation?

Yes. The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.

Do other media have similar projects?

Yes. Major European media such as "The Guardian" and "El País" have created similar sections on their news pages with "Global Development" or "Planeta Futuro" with the support of the Gates Foundation.

Was there already similar projects at SPIEGEL ONLINE?

SPIEGEL ONLINE has already implemented two projects in recent years with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The "Expedition The Day After tomorrow" on Global Sustainability Goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals" Several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and escape have emerged.

Where can I find all the publications on the Global Society?

The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL ONLINE on the topic page Global Society.

Source: spiegel

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