Global population trends for industrial and developing nations: Future Challenges and Implications
The global population trends have been of a major concern to World Governments, Organizations, and Scientific bodies. This was due to the world’s population exceeding 6 billion by 1999. Although there has been a drastic population growth, the trend has been non-uniform in all parts of the world.
For instance, in an industrialized region like Europe, the population by 2009 was 732 million and the 2050 population expectation is 609 million. However, for a developing region like Africa, at the same instance had a population of 1,010 million and expects 1,748 million by 2050 (Engelman, 2010).
It is wise to note that the developed regions though have many resources, are trying to control their population growth, and vice versa for the developing regions. This is quite ironical. The United Nations experts are in consent that the global population may reach its peak of 8 billion, and beyond 2040, it may begin to decline. Contrariwise, population growth expectation will be from the less developed nations.
Additionally, the average life expectancy in the industrialized regions is higher than that in less developed regions. This reveals that people in more developed regions are likely to live for long than their counterparts in developing regions. The varying fertility rate in these regions is responsible for the different population growth. For example, in United States women have two children on average while in Niger it is more than seven children (Fitzgerald, 2011).
Therefore, it is true that a high percentage of population growth occurs in developing regions, which already accommodates more than 82 percent of the global population. For developed regions, the reduction in fertility, improvement in health services, and rise in life expectancy leads to rise in median age since most people are aging (Lutz, 2004).
This scenario is the exact opposite of the developing regions, where the majorities are the young people. In explaining the population disparity, regions like Africa rely on traditional religions, which discourage family planning as a means of controlling birthrates. In addition, cultural attitudes encourage large families. They view many children as signs of wealth.
There are numerous challenges that are likely to face the two different regions. Urbanization, the movement to urban areas to get access better health care, education, and lucrative job opportunities, is an eminent challenge. With the insurgent of large population in the urban areas, problems like poor sanitation, inadequate water supply, and poor social services become common (Global Challenges Facing Humanity, n.d.).
Remarkably, these challenges will result due to the presence of unskilled groups with no sensible investments. Another problem of slum development will emerge, as there will be challenges of urban planning. Plans to improve these standards seem dim because the challenges are rampant in less developed nations with already strained economy. In Mexico, for example, statistics shows that alongside pollution, the city faces severe water shortage (Fitzgerald, 2011).
The next challenge is the decline in population and aging; this has been occurring in the industrialized nations. Women in Japan are focusing on career, an immense contrary to women in developing nations, focusing on giving birth to too many children. Apart from population decline in developed nations, there is an increase in the aging population. For instance, before the Industrial Revolution, those over 65 years were not more than 3 percent of the world population (Global Challenges Facing Humanity, n.d.).
Currently, those above 65 years constitute 14 percent in the industrialized nations. Contrastingly, developing nations have more of the youthful population than the old groups. In terms of cost, countries like Kenya experience high healthcare and education costs for the young population.
However, countries like United Kingdom face high healthcare and pension for the aged people. The few wage and salary earners bear this burden. Notably, developed nations are facing a challenge of supporting the increasing number of elderly group with the declining skilled youthful population. Therefore, these Governments channel a lot of money to support the elderly at the expense of the working population facing huge tax burdens.
Lastly, the developed nations will be facing workers shortage; thus, relenting on their immigration policies to curb this issue. The receiving nations have been treating immigrants with a lot of contempt. Factually, immigration could help to solve not only the explosive population in the developing nations but also the inadequate workers in developed nations. A country like Spain, with high aging population, has changed its immigration laws to allow more immigrants into the country (Hinrichsen & Robey, 2000). This will help to address the decrease in the workers-to-retirees ratio.
Conclusively, these challenges will automatically affect the state of the global business and economic sustainability. According to Lutz (2004), the world has a crisis in waiting. For example, the constantly increasing population in the developing nations coupled with unskilled work force, will lead to a decline in economic growth.
Again, the decreasing workers-to-retirees ratio implies more burden to the working class in the developed nations. Evidently, no single nation can effectively handle this global population trend. All these nations are at risk. Therefore, they should cooperate and put necessary adjustments and policies to solve these challenges, which, otherwise, could lead to worldwide social unrest.
References
Engelman, R. (2010). World Population Growth Slows Modestly, Still on Track for 7 Billion in Late 2011. Vital Signs.
Fitzgerald, B. (2011). Eco-Economy Indicators – Population| EPI. Earth Policy Institute. Web.
Global Challenges Facing Humanity. (n.d.). The Millennium Project. Web.
Hinrichsen, D., & Robey, B. (2000). Population and the Environment: The Global Challenge. ActionBioscience. Web.
Lutz, W. (2004). The End of World Population Growth in the 21st Century: New Challenges for Human Capital Formation and Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan.