THE AVERAGE number of children per family in developed countries has declined rapidly in recent decades. I come from a family of five children, whereas I myself have two.
But while population numbers are falling in the developed world, in the Third World populations are increasing rapidly. These demographic trends, when projected into the next century, have important implications for world stability and economic order.
World population remained at a low level during the first 16 centuries of the Christian era. Between 1600 and 1900 numbers started to increase and in the 20th century there was a global population explosion. World population today is near 5,000 million, having almost trebled in about 90 years.
If birth rate exceeds death rate the population will increase. When both rates are equal the population level remains constant. Mortality rates worldwide have dropped, particularly in developed countries. Over this same period, decreasing birth rates have been offset by declining mortality rates. This has not happened in Third World countries and so their populations have increased dramatically.
There is also a striking difference between developed and less developed countries in their relative proportions of young and elderly. In 1985 the percentage of the population aged 14 years and under in more developed countries was 22.2 per cent; in less developed countries it was 37.2 per cent. The percentage aged 60 years or more was 16.1 per cent in developed countries and only 6.6 per cent in less developed countries.
It can be calculated that 2.1 children per woman is the minimum needed in any given population to ensure population replacement from one generation to the next. In almost every industrial country fertility rates have dropped well below this, creating conditions for an eventual decrease in population. The few exceptions are Ireland. Israel and some eastern European countries. But in 1990 birth rates in Ireland, for the first time ever, dropped below replacement rates.
The modern decrease in fertility in developed countries can be ascribed to three factors:
. Increased practice and effectiveness of birth control.
. Liberalisation of laws regarding contraception and abort ion.
. Ongoing decline in the number of children desired by married couples. Why do couples today want fewer children? There are many explanations for this, some more reasoned than others:
. In the rational and secular climate of the modern developed state, people wish to control fertility as they control mortality and morbidity.
. Infant mortality rates have been reduced substantially in developed countries. Almost all children will reach adulthood. This has not always been the case. If birth rates remained as high as they were in the past, therefore, far more children would have to be reared and educated. Since general standards of education are much higher now than they were in the past, and therefore more expensive, maintaining high fertility rates would be an expensive option.
. Many women are now in the labour force and their social position has changed. Bearing children often entails losses in wage earning and career prospects for working women.
. There is a modern emphasis on the pursuit of personal self fulfilment. Rearing children, particularly large numbers, is seen to conflict with self fulfilment.
. In traditional societies children are regarded as earners for the family and as economic insurance for elderly parents. In industrialised societies, these factors do not apply.
In the past, marriage was a universally respected institution. The family was seen as the basic unit of society, and the appropriate context for the birth and socialisation of children. In many countries, cohabitations, other than marriage and for various lengths of time, are becoming increasingly accepted.
Marriage rates are falling and marriage is becoming destabilised as an institution. In Ireland about one quarter of all births are to single mothers. In some industrial societies a large proportion of marriages (up to one half) end in divorce.
The main effects of the decline in fertility and the destabilisation of marriage are:
. Population decline in some countries and in others imminent decline.
. More developed countries which contained 35 per cent of the world's population up to the as today contain 24 per cent and may only contain 17 per cent early in the next century.
. Decline in fertility rates in developed countries has been mainly responsible for the increased average age of their populations.
Whereas some welcome the declining populations of the developed world as a contribution towards stabilising the world population, there are several problems associated with it.
Increasing numbers of old people will be expensive to maintain and will demand expanded social services whose costs must be borne by too few people in the labour force. The declining young population in the developed world and the expanding young population in the less developed world will lead to largescale emigration into the developed world.
This makes economic sense but also causes political tensions. In the long term, such emigrations would also alter the ethnic structures of the countries receiving the immigrants.
On balance it may well be seen as an undesirable thing to allow the population of the developed world to decline to as little as 17 per cent of world population. To prevent this, we may see governments in the developed world promoting pronatal policies to equalise fertility rates and replacement values.