Demographic Delusions: World Population Growth Is Exceeding Most Projections and Jeopardising Scenarios for Sustainable Futures
Demographic Delusions: World Population Growth Is Exceeding Most Projections and Jeopardising Scenarios for Sustainable Futures
The size of the world’s population has profound implications for demand for food, energy and resources, land use change and greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines why most population projections have underestimated world population growth, and the implications for actions required to achieve ...
From the abstract:
Projections based on education and income as drivers of fertility decline ignore the reverse causation, that lowering fertility through family planning interventions enabled economic advancement and improved women’s education access
Interesting. I'd noticed that the best-known projections were unreasonably optimistic in some ways when you look at them in detail, but this angle is novel to me.
voluntary family planning provision and promotion achieved rapid fertility decline, even in poor, rural and illiterate communities.
I'd assumed that family planning was more quickly adopted in wealthier areas where people had greater expectations that their kids would survive. Interesting to learn that that's not necessarily true.