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_______________________________

Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach

School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies

Cornell University

16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky

New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau

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Population Reference Bureau (PRB)

Online Discussion of "Africa's Demographic Challenges"

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/1056151/0ff9c0e2ab/521078369/0c2c540698/

 

WHEN: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 11 a.m. - noon (EDT) (GMT-4)

 

WHO: Reiner Klingholz, Director, Berlin Institute for Population and Development; and Tanja Kiziak and Manuel Slupina, Research Associates, Berlin Institute

Authors of-

 

Berlin Institute for Population and Development

 

Africa’s Demographic Challenges: How a young population can make development possible [September 2011]

BY Lilli Sippel, Tanja Kiziak, Franziska Woellert, Reiner Klingholz

http://www.berlin-institut.org/selected-studies/africas-demographic-challenges.html

or

http://www.berlin-institut.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Afrika/Africas_demographic_challenges.pdf

[full-text, 84 pages]

 

[excerpt]

Population growth: reasons and consequences

 

The world population has reached a number of approximately seven billion and continues to grow strongly by about 79 million people each year. This growth is almost exclusively taking place in the less developed countries.

 

The continuous population growth there can be attributed to three factors:  Firstly, women in developing countries have significantly more children than in the developed regions of the world. Secondly, the populations in the developing countries are on average very young because of their high birth rates. As a result the number of women of child bearing age is high and will increase even more in the future. And thirdly, most people in the poorest regions are living longer due to improved health care and better food security.

 

Several risks and development obstacles arise from high population growth, for example, lack of food security, pressure on the health and education systems, overburdening of the infrastructure or scarcity of resources. All of this ultimately results in larger conflict potential.

 

In our study of 103 current and former developing countries, we could show that no single country has developed socio-economically without a parallel decline in the birth rate. Therefore, the development status of a country is closely linked to its population structure.

 

 

CONTENT

FOREWORD – WHEN GROWTH LIMITS DEVELOPMENT .....................................................4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................6

1. MANY CHILDREN – A RISK FACTOR? ..............................................................................8

2. HIGH BIRTH RATES AND DEVELOPMENT ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE .........................16

3. WHAT LEADS TO SMALLER FAMILIES ...........................................................................39

4. ROADMAP TO THE DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND .............................................................55

5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION...............................................................................67

METHODOLOGICAL NOTES ..............................................................................................73

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES....................................................................74

GLOSSARY .......................................................................................................................79

 

 

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