Declining Population: Around the world
Population around the world has been changing in a very interesting way recently. Factors like Fertility rates, Mortality rate, immigration plays an important role in the population of any country in the world. According to the “World Population Prospects 2019” published by the UN, the population will keep on increasing till 2100. But interestingly, the growth of population is not even across different countries. Population in some of the region especially Sub-Saharan Africa & South East Asia will be growing at a high rate while the population of more than 50 countries has been projected to decline. Yeah, in more than 1/4th of the total countries, the population is shrinking. This uneven growth in population is a big problem for many countries, it cost them GDP, Growth & different challenges at the international market. Let’s understand this uneven growth in population, the problem of a shrinking nation, their strategy to deal with this with the example of Japan & Ukraine.
World Population Prospects 2019
World Population Prospects is published by the Department of Economics & Social Affairs, United Nations every year. Here are some important highlights of the report in a summarized version.
- The world’s population continues to grow. From an estimated 7.7 billion people in 2019, the global population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.
- Populations in Eastern and SouthEastern Asia, Central and Southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Northern America are projected to reach peak population size and to begin to decline before the end of this century.
- More than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just nine countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America.
- The populations of 55 countries are projected to decrease by one percent or more between 2019 and 2050 because of sustained low levels of fertility, and, in some places, high rates of emigration. The largest relative reductions in population size over that period, with losses of around 20 percent or more, are expected in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the Wallis and Futuna Islands.
These are some of the key points from this report (You can read more in Comment Section). The current status of population growth looks very scary. The countries with a growing population are the worst to be affected by Climate Change & developed countries where the population is shrinking seems to loose in the world market and forced to be dependent on other countries for the workforce.
The population is a huge factor of mortality rate & emigration. Most of the countries where the population is declining are due to high emigration or high mortality rate or both. If the population of a country has to increase its mortality rate should be below 2.1 as per UN report. In contrast, there are more than 50 countries with a mortality rate is higher than the cutoff. Japan is a typical example where the population is declining due to the high mortality rate & Ukraine is an example of high emigration. Let’s understand with an example of Japan why the mortality rate is declining?
Why Declining Population?
Japan’s declining population, due to the rising mortality rate, is becoming a concern of the government. The main reason behind high mortality is the current generation doesn’t want a child and family. Japanese researchers found that among unmarried people between the ages of 18 and 34, nearly 70 percent of men and 60 percent of women were not in a relationship. A major factor may be a dearth of stable jobs for young people. Since the 1990s, labor laws changed, leading to more part-time and contract work, according to The Atlantic. Even the Karoshi — overworking culture and strict office routine is a major blocker in family planning of the youngsters. Another reason is the change in the family types. There is a new class of youngsters who don’t marry and have children because they and their potential partners know they can’t afford to have it. So the individual family concept is growing more in cities like Tokyo where the apartment cost is so huge. People end up fitting in 200- 500 sq.ft apartments of their own. More and less the above reasons justify a decline in the population of all the developed countries. Should Countries be worried about its declining population? What problems decline in population are bringing?
Modern Solution to Modern Problem
Most of the countries with a declining population are worried about their future. One major problem is a lack of labor force, which very much impact their economy. To overcome this problem Japan is under the new policy, the government plans to create a new five-year visa category, through which Japan would receive 500,000 low-skilled laborers by 2025. This lead to another major problem i.e threat to their identity which is a serious national security problem. If the immigrants keep on flowing into a medium populated country and mortality rate of its citizens keeps on decreasing, the identity of the country & its citizens seems hazy in a longer time. May be why Japan is moving towards the Robotic world at a very high pace. Japan is working in the direction of Drone Delivery and Driverless Cars. It has already automated its manufacturing industries to a great extent and now working in the direction to remove human resources from the Service-Based industry. Way the sex toy industry boomed in Japan gives answers to many questions. People are more relying on the machine even for sexual requirements. Japan is also working in the direction to train its youth on child-rearing and family planning. Even it gives many benefits to the couple who get married and plan to have their own child. Also, they support bicultural marriage. With the current measures, Japan seems to hackle the problem of the declining population as some other problem. But will there be an increase in the population of Japan? Well, the current trend doesn’t seem to show that.
Ukraine: A Small Report
The problem with Ukraine is more complex. Its population has decreased by about 200,000 people in 2018. People are dying due to bad living conditions, declining environmental standards, or the war. And yet the biggest problem stays is “most active workforce is considering emigration.” According to a January 2016 report by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in 2016 every birth in Ukraine was matched by 1.5 deaths. By the end of 2016, Ukraine’s population had decreased by about 9.5 million from its 1993 peak of 52,244,100 a net 18 percent drop. The sudden decrease was majorly in the year 2014. For the first time in the post-Soviet era, Ukraine’s national population data excluded Crimea, a territory Russia annexed that year, as reported by Newsweek. But in the current time emigration of people stays top concern of the state. Why Ukrainians are emigrating?
Ukraine is going through a phase of political and economic instability. Most of the youth made a choice of no child or tried hard to send their children outside Ukraine. Adding to this corruption & ongoing war with the rebel group in the Donbass region is a major motivation for its residents to look for a better life outside the country. Russia has been the top destination of the migrants, around 70% of Ukrainian emigrants live there. According to UN data, the number of Ukrainian emigrants in the USA, Canada, Western, Central Europe and Australia has increased from 0.7 to 1.6 million and their share in the total number of Ukrainians who moved abroad has increased from 13% to 27%. Ukraine is promoting labor forces from outside to work there and even get citizenship. But the country seems far away from solving this problem in the nearby future.
