Samir Kc

The human core of the shared socioeconomic pathways: Population scenarios by age, sex and level of education for all countries to 2100

Highlights • We convert the general SSP storylines into demographic scenarios for 195 countries.• Human populations are cross-classified by age, gender and level of education.• Future fertility and hence population growth will depend on female education.• In the median assumptions scenario (SSP2) world population will peak around 2070.• By 2100 world population ranges from 6.9 (SSP1) to 12.6 billion (SSP3).

Dimensions of global population projections: what do we know about future population trends and structures?

The total size of the world population is likely to increase from its current 7 billion to 8–10 billion by 2050. This uncertainty is because of unknown future fertility and mortality trends in different parts of the world. But the young age structure of the population and the fact that in much of Africa and Western Asia, fertility is still very high makes an increase by at least one more billion almost certain. Virtually, all the increase will happen in the developing world. For the second half of the century, population stabilization and the onset of a decline are likely. In addition to the future size of the population, its distribution by age, sex, level of educational attainment and place of residence are of specific importance for studying future food security. The paper provides a detailed discussion of different relevant dimensions in population projections and an evaluation of the methods and assumptions used in current global population projections and in particular those produced by the United Nations and by IIASA.

Global Human Capital: Integrating Education and Population

Almost universally, women with higher levels of education have fewer children. Better education is associated with lower mortality, better health, and different migration patterns. Hence, the global population outlook depends greatly on further progress in education, particularly of young women. By 2050, the highest and lowest education scenarios—assuming identical education-specific fertility rates—result in world population sizes of 8.9 and 10.0 billion, respectively. Better education also matters for human development, including health, economic growth, and democracy. Existing methods of multi-state demography can quantitatively integrate education into standard demographic analysis, thus adding the “quality” dimension.

FERTILITY-REDUCING DYNAMICS OF WOMEN'S SOCIAL STATUS AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Education, unlike most other determinants of social status, causes a significant delay in fertility timing and depresses fertility outcomes. It also operates as a self-reinforcing status-seeking spiral mechanism, with important consequences for aggregate fertility over time. Later-born cohorts of women, in order to maintain a given position in the education distribution compared to their same-age peers, must attain increasingly higher levels of education. This implies that the process of status-seeking is having increasingly strong effects in terms of reducing global fertility levels. This can be particularly important for Asian nations where schooling levels have risen rapidly in recent decades and there has been an increase in the ages at childbearing and a depression of fertility outcomes.

Future population and human capital in heterogeneous India

Significance India will soon be the world’s most populous country, but in terms of human capital and, consequently, Gross Domestic Product per capita, it has been trailing behind China. While some economists believe that India’s younger population will be an advantage over China’s aging one, here we show that much will depend on future investments in education and health and thus human capital. In terms of methodology, this paper addresses the question of what sources of observable population heterogeneity should be explicitly incorporated in population projections. It suggests that the dominant model of considering only the age and sex structures at the national level should be complemented by multidimensional models depending on the importance of heterogeneity and substantive user interest in the additional dimensions. Within the next decade India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country due to still higher fertility and a younger population. Around 2025 each country will be home to around 1.5 billion people. India is demographically very heterogeneous with some rural illiterate populations still having more than four children on average while educated urban women have fewer than 1.5 children and with great differences between states. We show that the population outlook greatly depends on the degree to which this heterogeneity is explicitly incorporated into the population projection model used. The conventional projection model, considering only the age and sex structures of the population at the national level, results in a lower projected population than the same model applied at the level of states because over time the high-fertility states gain more weight, thus applying the higher rates to more people. The opposite outcome results from an explicit consideration of education differentials because over time the proportion of more educated women with lower fertility increases, thus leading to lower predicted growth than in the conventional model. To comprehensively address this issue, we develop a five-dimensional model of India’s population by state, rural/urban place of residence, age, sex, and level of education and show the impacts of different degrees of aggregation. We also provide human capital scenarios for all Indian states that suggest that India will rapidly catch up with other more developed countries in Asia if the recent pace of education expansion is maintained.

An Age Distribution Story: Reading into the Population Pyramid of Nepal

An analysis of the ongoing demographic transition in Nepal reveals the hallmark ‘youth bulge’ indicative of a young population. Such a situation presents policy makers with an ideal opportunity to ...An analysis of the ongoing demographic transition in Nepal reveals the hallmark ‘youth bulge’ indicative of a young population. Such a situation presents policy makers with an ideal opportunity to shape the future of the country for generations to come. In 2011, a national census recorded a very high number of incorrect ages (CBS, 2012). In the population pyramid (Figure 1), each bar represents the total population for a single age, starting from age 0 (at the bottom) to age 100 and over (on the top). There is clearly a preference for ages ending with 0, 5 or 2. In technical terms this is known as ‘ageheaping’, where individuals are uncertain as to their exact age or that of family members and consequently report ages that are easy to remember. Before any analysis of an age distribution can be undertaken, the age heaping needs to be corrected. One common technique is to fit a cubic spline to smooth the age distribution (Figure 2). I will use the resulting pyramid to tell the story of Nepalese demography for the past 100 years as well as make some tentative projections into the future. Population age differs from individual age. A population is considered younger when there are more young people and the population pyramid is shaped like a typical pyramid with a larger base. Nepal has a very young population that is now ageing as the sizes of subsequent cohorts reduce. Nepal’s population, although no longer a typical pyramid, is still relatively young with a huge bulge around ages 10–14, implying that Nepal will have a steady stream of youth entering the labour market for the foreseeable future. As a result of this sizeable youth bulge, there will be more Nepalese available for employment abroad, which will be a major source of employment for the Nepalese population and will increase remittances. However, an overreliance on income derived from foreign employment (in the form of inexpensive labour) will lead to increased vulnerability to global financial uncertainties in the event of a worldwide economic downturn. Nepal thus finds itself at a crossroads where policy decisions can serve to either harness the energy of this younger generation or potentially exacerbate underlying societal issues. I believe that Nepal should take advantage of the current demographic situation by fostering an investment friendly environment and working to develop its own industry. Such an approach would be beneficial for a number of reasons, chief among them being the opportunity to gain financial security both domestically and within the Asian Population Studies, 2014 Vol. 10, No. 2, 121–124, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441730.2014.902164

Population Stabilization, Human

Human population change has three components: births, deaths, and migration. On a global level, only births and deaths determine changes in population size. During the 1990s and 2000s, more than 70 million people were added to the world’s total population each year and it took only 12 years for the world’s population to increase from 5 to 6 billion people and today it is 7 billion people. This growth will continue into the coming decades of the twenty-first century. How much growth will occur and how quickly, and when or whether this growth will stabilize, depends on a host of factors. In 1994, the world community agreed to the need to stabilize global population growth. This article describes the history of global population growth, factors associated with this growth, and how countries view this growth. It concludes with a discussion of prospects for the stabilization of population growth in the future.