"Fertility" (fecundity) may be the long term driver of population size but we cannot talk about it as though it was the only thing determining it. The main factor underpinning fecundity is the food supply. Since we are now post-peak in terms of our oil supply (http://www.postpeakliving.com/peak-oil-primer) and since future phosphate supplies are uncertain (http://www.energybulletin.net/node/33164) we face a crash in food production within ten years. Traditional food exporters such as Australia will probably have difficulty feeding themselves let alone exporting anything. (Australia actually exports far less food than previously believed! - http://www.energybulletin.net/node/33164). For these reasons I think we will see world population falling before 2030.

Sorry, the link for Australia's food exports being less than commonly believed should have been http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2009/s2526814.htm

Poverty & environmental destruction is caused by population growth!
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Reading the fertility rates by nation, it is clear that all the poorest countries, countries with desertification and growing exploitation of the fragile environment have the highest fertility... And this fertility is the CAUSE of poverty, not a RESULT of poverty.

For a list of "fertility" rates by nation, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_fertility_rate

The highest fertility rates have the highest poverty (and also some Muslim nations with culturally driven high fertility)

Imagine, that our government had top build 5 time more schools, 5 times more hospitals, roads and somehow make 5 times more farm land each generation? Our wealthy economies would simply collapse! Our cities would choke, our schools provide lessons in the playground, taught by volunteer retirees, our national parks would be opened up for food farming to fend off starvation...

But that is the burden we allow the poor countries to suffer from... Rwanda's growth means that every 25 years, there are 5 times more people! Aid that saves lives, reducing infant mortality, deepens a nations problems.

Why is it 'not acceptable' to talk about 'population management' as the solution to poverty? Thailand has implemented such policies, ad the effects are impressive. The people who oppose population management are sadists, guilty of causing immeasurable pain and death. (now I'm getting dramatic!)

Feminism
The other thing to note is the bottom of the list - nations who are committing genocide against themselves by failing to produce children are the richest nations (and some with social issues, repression etc). These are the most "feminist" nations... If education of women reduces fertility (one of feminism's basic claims), then stronger militant feminism seems to cause such low fertility to be suicidal.

The 'man drought'

..continued...

Perhaps it is time we started reading Thomas Malthus again.
http://desip.igc.org/malthus/guests.html
might be a good place to start.

David

...continued...

The 'man drought'
There are several reasons for low fertility... "the Marriage Strike" (http://www.glennsacks.com/have_antifather_family.htm) is rampant across the west. Middle class men are described as "commitment phobic". But far from some irrational 'phobia', rational response to 50% divorce rates and the fact that many children have their dads stolen from them by divorce courts. Divorce courts routinely take the lion-share of a family's assets, around 50% of the after-tax income, and (worst of all!) the children away from dads. Faced with these risks, many middle-class men are simply refusing to become fathers.

Add to that the shocking collapse in boys school results over the last 20 years, means there are too few professional men to become middle-class fathers. In Australia, 6-out-of-10 new uni graduates are girls.

For each 6 professional women, there are only 4 professional men. Of these, some will marry their secretaries, some are on the marriage strike and some may even be gay. Leaving maybe two professional men for the 6 professional women. Since women continue not to marry 'down', there are simply too few 'good' men.

Supporting Families
Western nations need to stop treating fathers as the goose that laid the golden egg. We need to protect children's right to both natural parents. We need to remove the strong incentives given to women which encourage divorce and encourage single-motherhood.

We need to encourage the professional classes to form stable families. Fertility is dramatically lower as socio-economic status increases, with welfare recipients having the highest fertility, and female graduates the lowest.

We need to wind-up the complex array of means-tested family payments, baby-bonuses, maternity leave, child-care benefits.

A simple tax-deduction for each child, or allow income income splitting between parents AND their children. This will protect children by discouraging divorce and allow middle-class parents to have the children they want but currently can't afford.

We must remove the perverse incentives that encourage single-parent families, encourage high fertility from the mothers most likely to rely on welfare, and that discourage men from commitment. Australia needs children, and children need both their natural parents.

James ADAMS MBA
PartTimeParent@pobox.com

It is unfortunate that Professor Chamie - a well known and respected demographer on the global stage - did not also explain that the primary cause of present and future population growth is a phenomenon demographers call the 'momentum effect', not high fertility per se. This, coupled with declining infant mortality, means that another 2 billion people by mid century is essentially unavoidable. The mometum effect refers to the youthful age structure of many developing countries - the legacy of the high fertility rates of the recent past, not directly of the present. Even if the birth rate fell below 2.1 immediately, population growth would continue for at least another few decades as the large cohorts already in their teens and childhood years reach their own reproductive years. Declining infant mortality compounds this growth because it keeps more babies alive, and within a few decades they too become reproducers. It is indeed of critical importance for policy makers to be fully educated on these dynamics, because the picture is very different when viewed with all the pieces of the jigsaw on display. To try to bring down the remaining areas of high fertility much faster than it is already falling (in most cases it has halved in the space of 15 years) will result in extremely rapid structural ageing, which these countries will struggle to cope with (look at how we in the west are carrying on about it!!). Rather, we in the rich countries need to help the developing countries through their remaining unavoidable growth - which we ourselves 'enjoyed' in the twentieth century and which largely drove our economic booms. Yes that support must include funding for contraception - and equally importantly education and health, but if we keep whipping that old horse 'high fertility' (which at 2.6 births per woman globally is actually quite low) and believe that we can resolve the problems by simply getting the birth rate down to the magical replacement level overnight, we will fundamentally fail to prepare for the truly enormous UNAVOIDABLE challenge ahead.