It wouldn’t. First the time it takes for population changes to happen is very slow compared tithe business cycles that drive adaptations to economic changes. Second, eliminating malaria is considerably more likely to reduce population growth than increase it.
Do you have any pointer to studies suggesting that eliminating fatal diseases generally reduce population growth relative to the observed growth with the disease?
So I’m just reasoning off the general existence of a really strong demographic transition effect where richer populations that among other things are way, way less likely to die in childbirth have way fewer children than poor populations.
The impression I get, without having looked into this very deeply, is that the two most common models for what is going on is a female education effect, which correlates with wealth and thus lower mortality, but where the lower mortality effect is not having a direct causal influence on having fewer children, and a certainty of having surviving children effect, where once child mortality is low enough, there isn’t a perceived need to have lots of births to ensure having some kids who survive to adulthood.
I’m sure there are other theories, and I don’t know the literature trying to disentangle from observational studies and ‘natural experiments’ exactly what component of the changes that are involved with becoming a rich industrialized society causes birthrates to collpase.
The basic point though is that whatever the causal story, empirically you will find an extremely strong association between low childhood mortality rates and low birth rates. This is why people who are concerned with overpopulation generally see reducing childhood death rates as a good thing from an overpopulation perspective: There is a good chance that it is causal for fewer people being born, and it definitely in the historical record doesn’t seem to drive rapid population growth.
Having said that, when I was more interested in demographics ten years ago, I got the impression that Africa was seen as transitioning slower than Asia, Europe, Latin America or the Middle East had.
It wouldn’t. First the time it takes for population changes to happen is very slow compared tithe business cycles that drive adaptations to economic changes. Second, eliminating malaria is considerably more likely to reduce population growth than increase it.
Do you have any pointer to studies suggesting that eliminating fatal diseases generally reduce population growth relative to the observed growth with the disease?
TIA
So I’m just reasoning off the general existence of a really strong demographic transition effect where richer populations that among other things are way, way less likely to die in childbirth have way fewer children than poor populations.
The impression I get, without having looked into this very deeply, is that the two most common models for what is going on is a female education effect, which correlates with wealth and thus lower mortality, but where the lower mortality effect is not having a direct causal influence on having fewer children, and a certainty of having surviving children effect, where once child mortality is low enough, there isn’t a perceived need to have lots of births to ensure having some kids who survive to adulthood.
I’m sure there are other theories, and I don’t know the literature trying to disentangle from observational studies and ‘natural experiments’ exactly what component of the changes that are involved with becoming a rich industrialized society causes birthrates to collpase.
The basic point though is that whatever the causal story, empirically you will find an extremely strong association between low childhood mortality rates and low birth rates. This is why people who are concerned with overpopulation generally see reducing childhood death rates as a good thing from an overpopulation perspective: There is a good chance that it is causal for fewer people being born, and it definitely in the historical record doesn’t seem to drive rapid population growth.
Having said that, when I was more interested in demographics ten years ago, I got the impression that Africa was seen as transitioning slower than Asia, Europe, Latin America or the Middle East had.