Lecture Tim Dyson,iss,The Hague,The Netherlands,23 April 2009 part 11 — Transcript

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1. 0:00in in not not not not right what is
2. 0:02required for fertility decline is
3. 0:04mortality
4. 0:06decline many people um you're having
5. 0:09John Cleveland here in a few weeks time
6. 0:11many people John and I and but many
7. 0:14others believe that the ultimate cause
8. 0:16of fertility decline is mortality
9. 0:18decline no human population has reduced
10. 0:21its fertility from high to low levels in
11. 0:23the absence of a previous sustained
12. 0:26major mortality decline so poor
13. 0:28populations can reduce their
14. 0:30fertility now jeron's
15. 0:33Point um is moving to the second point
16. 0:36about urbanization uh is well taken
17. 0:40um it is true of course that Family
18. 0:43Planning Services tend to be better
19. 0:44provided for in urban than in rural
20. 0:46areas of most uh countries and of course
21. 0:50that relies to other forms of services
22. 0:51as well however crude rates of natural
23. 0:55increase tend to be quite similar
24. 0:57between the urban sector and the rural
25. 0:59sector of most most countries because of
26. 1:01course death rates are also lower in
27. 1:03urban urban areas so I've been looking
28. 1:05at this with what data that are
29. 1:07available and the crude rates of natural
30. 1:09increase the difference between the
31. 1:10birth rate and the death rate tends to
32. 1:12be quite similar in in many countries um
33. 1:15the only point I would make in response
34. 1:17or in addition to what Jeron said is of
35. 1:19course we would want to improve Family
36. 1:21Planning services in rural areas in many
37. 1:24places and that would tend to reduce the
38. 1:26flow of rural to Urban migration other
39. 1:28things equal
40. 1:30um the third Point related to carbon
41. 1:34emissions and it seemed to me that the
42. 1:36point that was being made is that carbon
43. 1:41emissions result from in simple terms
44. 1:43modern economic growth
45. 1:46absolutely
46. 1:49absolutely um the whole basis of the
47. 1:53rising living standards that everyone in
48. 1:55this room has enjoyed has been dependent
49. 1:57upon the use of fossil fuels oil coal
50. 2:00and natural gas if we were to take out
51. 2:03the products of fossil fuels from this
52. 2:07room here and now material products
53. 2:10virtually everything would disappear the
54. 2:11building would go we would have no
55. 2:13clothes the tables the glasses
56. 2:15everything would go modern European
57. 2:18populations and populations elsewhere
58. 2:19are not they don't recognize just how
59. 2:23dependent upon fossil fuel use we are
60. 2:27and if you look for example at Europe um
61. 2:30in France
62. 2:31CO2 uh emissions per person something
63. 2:34like six metric tongues per person which
64. 2:36is much lower than it would be in the
65. 2:37Netherlands much the lower that would be
66. 2:39in the United Kingdom but the difficulty
67. 2:41is it's nuclear power so but looking at
68. 2:44the world as a whole people are just
69. 2:46don't realize how crucially important
70. 2:49fossil fuel use coal oil and natural gas
71. 2:51the tapping of those energies is for the
72. 2:54material living standards that we enjoy
73. 2:56it's an absolutely crucial point and to
74. 2:59take the second point from what you said
75. 3:02of course uh in the USA CO2 emissions
76. 3:05per person per year are something over
77. 3:0620 20 ttimes per person per year very
78. 3:08high level partly because of the nature
79. 3:11of the dispersed nature of North
80. 3:12American society but those effects have
81. 3:15Global effects now in terms of CO2 so we
82. 3:19need to talk about this later but I'm
83. 3:20very very warm to what you said if you
84. 3:22look if you plot per capita income
85. 3:25against per capita use of fossil fuels
86. 3:28you find basically that poor countries
87. 3:31don't use fossil fuels very much they're
88. 3:32all under one ton per person per
89. 3:36year okay I by the way I would like to
90. 3:39see a rise in per capita fossil fuel use
91. 3:42in countries like India because it's the
92. 3:45only damn way that people are going to
93. 3:47be lifted out of poverty or at least
94. 3:49it's needed if people are going to be
95. 3:50lifted out of poverty but we need to
96. 3:52recognize that in my view and we often
97. 3:55don't we we avoid it difficult women's
98. 3:59rights
99. 4:00and education absolutely of
100. 4:03course of course uh but the education uh
101. 4:07the education of women is girls women
102. 4:11Etc is terribly important utterly
103. 4:13important incredibly
104. 4:16important um a lot of demographic
105. 4:18research over the last 20 to 30 years in
106. 4:21fact demographers were amongst the first
107. 4:22people analyzing data from the so-called
108. 4:24World fertility survey surveys in
109. 4:26developing countries of fertility found
110. 4:28that the level of female education
111. 4:31tended to be just about the most
112. 4:33important variable that determined
113. 4:35variation in firstly the level of
114. 4:38fertility within the household and
115. 4:40secondly the level of child mortality
116. 4:43within the household so what
117. 4:46demographers appreciated and others of
118. 4:49course also much more nowadays is that
119. 4:52increasing levels of education for women
120. 4:54is a key way of
121. 4:58facilitating child Mor ality Decline and
122. 5:00fertility
123. 5:02decline but don't get too carried away
124. 5:05with
125. 5:06that
126. 5:08because uneducated women can reduce
127. 5:10their fertility as well it just takes
128. 5:13them longer to do it if you look at
129. 5:16India for example between 1991 and 2001
130. 5:20the late great Indian demographer PN
131. 5:23mariat alas he died just over a year ago
132. 5:26but he showed that 60% of the reduction
133. 5:29infertility that occurred in India uh in
134. 5:32the 1990s occurred amongst women with
135. 5:35little or no
136. 5:36education so of course education is
137. 5:39terribly important and it does
138. 5:41facilitate the adoption of of Family
139. 5:43Planning amongst other things but it is
140. 5:45also possible for women with little or
141. 5:47no education to reduce their fertility
142. 5:49as well given the opportunity and that's
143. 5:52an important point to
144. 5:53make the final point I would say which
145. 5:56didn't wasn't actually put to me it was
146. 5:59make made more to Michelle but I just
147. 6:00want to briefly acknowledge the
148. 6:02important point that you make and that
149. 6:03is that population issues have become
150. 6:06one way or another taboo and it's kind
151. 6:09of
152. 6:09crazy we should be able to talk about
153. 6:12these things just why they are so
154. 6:14difficult to talk about I don't know
155. 6:16they regard they relate to issues of
156. 6:18difficult issues like sexual relations
157. 6:20they deal with the difficult issues like
158. 6:22identity uh and so on but I think we do
159. 6:24need to be we should be able to talk
160. 6:27about these things and in that cont text
161. 6:29I would like to reiterate a point which
162. 6:31Michelle made which I thought was so
163. 6:33important given what is so often said um
164. 6:36and that was he underlined the important
165. 6:38role that the United States took in
166. 6:40promoting the idea of Family Planning
167. 6:41during the 1950s and 1960s and to some
168. 6:44extent subsequently as well with
169. 6:46oscillation but it's very very important
170. 6:48not to be not to not to recognize that
171. 6:52the US actually took a lead some people
172. 6:54in the US in 1950s it was a very
173. 6:56valuable thing that they did okay that's
174. 7:03can you hear me no can you hear me
175. 7:07microphone okay can you hear me like
176. 7:09this yeah um on the uh uh issue of
177. 7:14population
178. 7:15Trends um we as demographers are
179. 7:19probably a different experience from
180. 7:21other people I mean I agree with you
181. 7:23that uh population growth is still high
182. 7:25in a number of countries around the
183. 7:27world but what has been fascin ating to
184. 7:29see over the last 30 years is the
185. 7:32decline in fertility almost everywhere I
186. 7:34mean there are still a few really Wares
187. 7:37in Africa where the fertility decline
188. 7:39hasn't started yet but there are very
189. 7:42few I mean rural Uganda rural Congo and
190. 7:46Rural Mali not Mali but Niger and Chad
191. 7:49and that's about it everywhere else has
192. 7:51been declining there are number of urban
193. 7:53places in Africa where uh we are almost
194. 7:57near replacement fertility
195. 8:00now if you have talked to any
196. 8:02demographer 30 years ago nobody will
197. 8:03have predicted this at all if you look
198. 8:06at the projections that the UN was doing
199. 8:09in the 60s and 70s they were all
200. 8:11predicting 15 billion people in 2050 and
201. 8:15now they are down to 9 or 9.2 or 9.5 and
202. 8:19this is because faity decline has been
203. 8:21much faster than anybody anticipated so
204. 8:24this is where I'm rather optimistic uh
205. 8:27in the long term of course the Horizon
206. 8:29is 2050 is not today but I think we are
207. 8:33moving in the right direction in term of
208. 8:36controlling the population of the
209. 8:39world uh of course there's a big
210. 8:41momentum I mean those things do not
211. 8:43happen at once but the magnitude of the
212. 8:46changes have been
213. 8:48much bigger than everybody anticipated
214. 8:5130 years
215. 8:53ago um about population shrinking versus
216. 8:57increasing yeah my point was very