Developing countries can fuel economic expansion and boost productivity by investing in family planning and reproductive health services, according to a major United Nations report published yesterday.
The report by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said lower fertility and slower population growth during the last three decades had contributed to faster economic progress in a number of developing countries.
It urged such countries to take advantage of a "demographic window" opened by a decreasing number of younger children and older people in their populations.
A third of the annual economic growth of the east Asian "tiger" economies was due to the advantages this window had presented. In Brazil, the effect of declining fertility has been equal to economic growth of 0.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product per capita each year, it said.
"Better health, including reproductive health, and education contribute to economic growth," the UNFPA said in the 2002 edition of its annual State of World Population report which was launched simultaneously in world capitals yesterday.
"This year for the first time the report is also able to show solid, research-based evidence that promoting better reproductive health also promotes economic growth and reduces poverty," said Mr Brendan O'Brien of UNFPA at a Dublin press conference publicising the report, People, Poverty and Possibilities.
He said new analysis "shows that actions that lower fertility help produce economic growth. Developing countries that have invested in family planning, smaller families and slower population growth have achieved higher productivity, more savings and more productive investment. For example, fertility declines accounted for one fifth of the economic growth in east Asia between 1960 and 1995."
The "demographic window" opened by falling fertility offered a once-only opportunity for economic growth, the report said. The window opens as the number of younger children decreases but closes again as the proportion of older people rises.
"Many countries are entering the transitional period," the report said.
Countries in south Asia will reach their peak ratio of workers to dependents between 2015 and 2025, while those in Latin America will do so between 2020 and 2030, it said.
In sub-Saharan Africa, fertility is so high that half the population is below the age of 17.6 years and the worker-dependents ratio is lower today than it was in 1950, the report said. Some countries in Africa had begun their demographic transition, but "progress will depend on the availability of reproductive health services including family planning".
Brazil's fertility rate is estimated at 2.15 children per woman, just above the replacement rate of 2.10 required to keep a population stable. The average rate for Latin America is 2.50. While the average fertility rate for developing countries has dropped from six children per woman in 1960 to about 2.90, it remains at 5.20 in the least developed regions.
The report said better education "helps women to protect their own and their children's health and widens economic choices. Higher incomes improve living environments, reduce malnutrition and provide a buffer against the costs of poor health."
It urged wealthy countries to give more aid to poor nations for health, education and family planning and urged developing nations to better tailor their programmes to the poor, leaving them with more money to spend on other pressing needs. UNFPA provides €6 billion a year to reproductive health programmes, which include care for pregnant women and newborn babies, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, as well as family planning.
The report argued that addressing population concerns was crucial to meeting the UN's Millennium Summit goals of halving global poverty and arresting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.
The report found that half the world - more than three billion people - live on less than two dollars a day. Projections by the UN Population Division show the world's population rising from just over six billion today to 9.3 billion by mid-century, almost entirely due to demographic growth in the poorest countries.