Geneva, Switzerland:
Rather than fixate on the impact of the world’s rapidly growing population, the world should look to women’s reproductive rights to bolster “demographic resilience,” the UN said on Wednesday.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – the United Nations agency for sexual and reproductive health – acknowledged widespread concern about the size of the world’s population, which is expected to peak at about 10.4 billion by the 2080s .
But the UNFPA said the focus should be on giving women more power to decide when and how to have children.
“The question is, ‘Can everyone exercise their basic human right to choose the number and spacing of their children?’ Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no,” said UNFPA chief Natalia Kanem.
She said that “44 percent, almost half of women, are unable to exercise bodily autonomy. Unable to make choices about contraception, health care and whether and with whom to have sex. And globally, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended.”
She said countries with the highest fertility rates contribute the least to global warming and suffer the most from its effects.
In its major annual State of World Population report, the UNFPA found that the most common view is that the world’s population is too large.
But it said passing the eight billion mark “should be a cause for celebration. It is a milestone that represents historic progress for humanity in medicine, science, health, agriculture and education”.
“It is time to put fear aside, to move away from population targets and to choose demographic resilience – an ability to adapt to fluctuations in population growth and fertility rates,” it said.
India is catching up with China
“The world’s population is rearranging rapidly,” Kanem told a news conference.
Although the population is now the largest ever seen, “the global average fertility rate is the lowest in living memory”.
Kanem said the ranking of the world’s most populous countries will change significantly over the next 25 years, with India currently overtaking China at the top.
Eight countries will account for half of the projected global population growth by 2050: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
According to the report, two-thirds of people live in countries with low fertility.
“This is the first time in human history that not every country is getting bigger,” Kanem said.
The countries with the highest fertility rates were all in Africa: Niger (6.7), Chad (6.1), DR Congo (6.1), Somalia (6.1), and Mali and the Central African Republic (5. 8).
The areas with the lowest birth rates were Hong Kong (0.8), South Korea (0.9), Singapore (1.0), Macau and San Marino (1.1), and Aruba and China (1.2).
Europe is the only region expected to experience an overall population decline between now and 2050.
According to the report, the global fertility rate per woman is currently 2.3. Life expectancy is 71 years for men and 76 years for women.
“All populations are aging largely because we are living longer. Average life expectancy has increased by about a decade since 1990,” says Kanem.
Twenty-five percent of the world’s population is 14 years or younger; 65 percent are 15-64 years old and 10 percent are 65 years and older.
The report found that fearful governments were increasingly adopting policies aimed at raising, lowering or maintaining fertility rates. However, such efforts are often ineffective.
“There are half a million births to girls ages 10-14 every year… girls who are too young to consent to sex, girls who have been married off, abused, or both,” Kanem added.
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