The Grad Voice

The overall global population is increasing dramatically, but not in a uniform distribution. While countries like India, Nigeria, and Bangladesh are faced with dramatic obstacles in curbing their population growth, many nations are currently experiencing a significant loss in population, while others face the prospect of a decline in the number of their citizens. As parts of the world become overwhelmed with an unsustainable population, others are in danger of not having enough people to maintain national integrity. Specifically, the danger is faced in Eastern Europe and Russia, in the developed nations of Western Europe and the Far East, and more recently in the AIDS-ravaged nations of Southern Africa.
In 1992, immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia had a population of 149 million. Today, 14 years later, the nation has lost 6 million people. Ukraine has lost 10% of its population since independence and currently has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. The story is the same for the other former Russian republics. Birth rates here are at record lows, while death rates are high due to crime, drug use, alcoholism, STDs, and ecological consequences leftover from the communist era. Birth defects and infertility are common; about 15% of the population in Russia is currently infertile.FN1 Also, there is a general pessimism within these nations, resulting in the reluctance of adults to bring new children into a world with little opportunity and much suffering.
What does this mean for the region? A loss of population means a loss of labor force, purchasing power, and increased strains in providing infrastructure support in depopulated areas. Also, there will be an increase in the ratio of elderly to young.
In developed nations such as those in Western Europe and East Asia, the prospect of population loss is alarming to a lesser extent. These countries also have very low birth rates, but they also enjoylow death rates, thanks to advances in medicine and social welfare. Life expectancy is very high in these countries, and pregnant women receive a high level of medical care, resulting in the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. For most of these nations, the population growth rate is at or very near to zero. However, as the median ages of these countries increase, the trend will begin to shift to depopulation. Japan has been facing this danger for the past decade, as its population ages and fewer children are born to replace them. Today, the median age in Japan is almost 43 years, one of the highest in the world. Once this elderly population begins to pass away, the population trend will shift downward as the death rate eclipses the birth rate. Western European countries face a similar prospect, and governments are taking measures to revive the birth rate as compensation. In Germany, which has the second lowest birthrate in the world, the government agreed this month to a financial package that allows professional women to take a year off to have children, while providing compensation and the opportunity to return to the same job once the year is up.FN2 Other European countries have been implementing family planning incentives for some time now. In France, couples with children are given tax incentives, as well as stipends for school supplies and clothing. As a result, the country enjoys a slight average growth in population of around 0.4%, high by European standards.
The danger of population decline is present for an entirely different reason in southern Africa. Those countries, some of the more developed by African standards, have moderately high birth rates, but are struck with enormous death rates due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that rampages throughout the region. While Africa as a whole is exploding in population and in danger of overstretching its resources, the South is burdened with a decline in population and life expectancies that are less than half that of the developed world. Botswana, a moderately developed nation of 1.5 million, now has the highest death rate in the world and is beginning to lose an already sparse population. South Africa is also rapidly losing its citizens to AIDS, as are Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Zambia. Even worse, the death rate iscomposed of not just the elderly, but the young and middle-aged, the crux of the labor force and mainstay of functionality in a nation. This continued trend will have a dramatic effect on the age distribution,and therefore economic productivity, infrastructural stability, and social cohesion.
In these countries with issues of population decline, it is up to the governments to influence the situation in a way that helps to maintain the structural integrity of its nation. While most administrations work feverishly to rehabilitate their population figures, some use questionable practices to tackle the problem. South Africa's leader, Thabo Mbeki, has been repeatedly criticized for taking a passive stance to the AIDS epidemic in his country, shunning the cheap anti-retroviral drugs that have become available for the region, and even openly questioning the scientific proof of the link between HIV and AIDS. An active proponent of African solutions to African problems, Mbeki has seemingly gone overboard with this policy and has potentially put his people in grave danger as a result.In order to tackle problems of depopulation, world leaders must be more objective and open-minded, using a combination of scientific method and effective marketing to eradicate disease and encourage child-rearing to the point at which population levels reach stability once again.
Notes 1. According to Murray Feshbach, a senior scholar at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson Center, interviewed by BBC, http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/europe/988723.stm 2. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/14/news/ germany.php

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