Laws: January, 2003 - Number #21

The average number of babies per woman fell from five in 1960 to 2.7 in 2002. The global population, currently 6.3 billion, would stabilize if fertility reaches 2.1 babies per woman, but new UN projections assume that it may fall to 1.85 babies per woman. Over 60 countries have below-replacement fertility rates, and countries such as Turkey and Mexico are expected to join them by 2020. If fertility falls as fast as now projected, the world's population would peak at nine billion in 2050 and then begin to decline.

The world population is growing by 77 million people a year; six countries account for half the growth.

Demographers assumed that women wanted at least two children, and that fertility would not decline until incomes rose significantly. Both assumptions have been called into question, and demographers now say that a combination of widely available contraceptives and women's emancipation have reduced fertility in societies that remain poor, such as Bangladesh, where fertility fell from six to three within 25 years. As fertility declines, the average age rises from 28 in 2002 to a projected 40 in 2050.

Global poverty has declined. At 1985 prices, the number of people living in extreme poverty, less than $1 a day, and poverty, less than $2 a day, fell between 1970 and 1998-the share of the global population in extreme poverty fell from 17 percent to seven percent, and the share in poverty fell from 40 to 20 percent. Reduced global poverty is largely due to economic growth in very large countries, including China and India.

The US had 281 million residents in 2000, and an estimated 287 million in 2002- the US population is rising about three million a year. Fertility in the US varies by race- 1.9 for non-Hispanic white women and 2.1 for Black and Asian women. Hispanic fertility has been rising, and reached 3.2 in 2001- 21 percent of babies born in 2001 were Hispanic. Mexican-American women now have a higher birthrate than Mexican women..

In what is believed to be the largest-ever international poll, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked 38,000 people in 44 countries about their views of the US, and found that negative opinions of the US have increased in most nations over the past two years. The poll, conducted between July and October 2002, found support for the US slipping in Western Europe.

Environment. What should governments do about global warming, especially if policies that slow emissions of carbon dioxide also slow economic growth? During the 1990s, the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced three comprehensive studies on the cause and effect of global warming, warning of the potential for large-scale and irreversible changes if emissions were not reduced. In June 2001, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that global warming was a real problem caused, at least in part, by man-made pollution that could well have a "serious adverse" effect by the end of the 21st century.

The Bush administration acknowledges that global warming poses serious problems, but wants more research before implementing policies that could slow economic growth. In 2001, Bush said that, until 2012, the US would rely on voluntary measures by industries to slow growth in emissions of carbon dioxide and the other heat-trapping gases. Almost all other industrialized countries are supporting the Kyoto Protocol, which would require them to reduce gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

Many of the countries most likely to be affected by global warming are islands and developing nations with large populations in coastal areas, such as Bangladesh

Development Aid. Over the past 50 years, the industrial countries provided about $1 trillion in development aid to poorer countries, and aid continues to flow at the rate of about $55 billion a year. Critics say that 800 million people in 20 rich countries cannot solve the poverty of the 75 countries with 2.5 billion residents living on less than $750 a year.

Development economists stress the need for correct economic policies, institutions such as property rights and the rule of law, and favorable geography, which affect disease, comparative advantage and access to the sea, for economies to grow. One study found that, where Europeans colonized and settled, in part because the geography limited disease, good institutions developed and growth flourished, such as in Canada and the US. However, in areas with less favorable geography, as in Africa and Asia, there were few settlers, and colonization aimed to extract natural resources rather than build growth-increasing institutions.