Public health initiatives lower population growth.
Not quite. They may lower the birth rate, but, taken by themselves, I don’t see why they would lower the population growth.
The reduced fertility is usually attributed to greater wealth and education. I think it would be hard to disentangle public health advances from the general correlated mix of things that happen in a society as it becomes richer.
Not quite. They may lower the birth rate, but, taken by themselves, I don’t see why they would lower the population growth.
It nothing that’s trivaly true. Bill Gates spend a lot of money via his foundation in that area and holds the belief that public health initiatives are a good way to reduce population growth.
First, we’ve got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent, but there we see an increase of about 1.3.
I don’t think it’s impossible to separate the effects. There are a lot lot of philantrophic projects that are focused on a specific area and you can compare that area with others.
Bill Gates spend a lot of money via his foundation in that area and holds the belief that public health initiatives are a good way to reduce population growth.
A GiveWell intern—now a full-time employee—spent quite some time researching the effects of global poverty interventions on population size and reached no firm conclusions. I don’t think Gates’ beliefs, in the absence of details about his reasoning process, provide much evidential support in favor of your original claim.
Remember that population growth is driven by how many children survive to reproduce.
If you have one child per couple, your population won’t grow even if all the children survive to adulthood; conversely, if you have five children per couple, your population will grow even if half the children die before puberty.
Isn’t it exactly what army says?
Putting all other things aside: “how many” is not the same thing as ’which percentage of” precisely because even if 90% of 100 children per couple dies we still have 10 children per couple and growth of population.
If public health initiatives lowers “percentage of” surviving children and at the same time lowers “birth rate” we still can have ether option—decrease or increase—based on “percentage * rate >< 2”
And “if children are less likely to die, women get fewer of them” isn’t the same thing as “the number of children women get is inversely proportional to the probability that they survive”. My point still stands.
Not quite. They may lower the birth rate, but, taken by themselves, I don’t see why they would lower the population growth.
The reduced fertility is usually attributed to greater wealth and education. I think it would be hard to disentangle public health advances from the general correlated mix of things that happen in a society as it becomes richer.
It nothing that’s trivaly true. Bill Gates spend a lot of money via his foundation in that area and holds the belief that public health initiatives are a good way to reduce population growth.
I don’t think it’s impossible to separate the effects. There are a lot lot of philantrophic projects that are focused on a specific area and you can compare that area with others.
A GiveWell intern—now a full-time employee—spent quite some time researching the effects of global poverty interventions on population size and reached no firm conclusions. I don’t think Gates’ beliefs, in the absence of details about his reasoning process, provide much evidential support in favor of your original claim.
You said:
On the first glance the net effect looks to be zero. Remember that population growth is driven by how many children survive to reproduce.
Do you have any links to attempts to do so?
If you have one child per couple, your population won’t grow even if all the children survive to adulthood; conversely, if you have five children per couple, your population will grow even if half the children die before puberty.
“How many” is not the same thing as “which percentage of”.
Isn’t it exactly what army says? Putting all other things aside: “how many” is not the same thing as ’which percentage of” precisely because even if 90% of 100 children per couple dies we still have 10 children per couple and growth of population.
If public health initiatives lowers “percentage of” surviving children and at the same time lowers “birth rate” we still can have ether option—decrease or increase—based on “percentage * rate >< 2”
What did I missed here?
And “if children are less likely to die, women get fewer of them” isn’t the same thing as “the number of children women get is inversely proportional to the probability that they survive”. My point still stands.