Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview Q1 ANSWER 8 — Will saving poor children lead to overpopulation? Short answer — No. The opposite. www.gapminder.org/answers www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

A common misunderstanding is that if we save all the poor children, the world will become overpopulated. This may sound logical, but it’s WRONG. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

It’s the other way around: saving the poor children’s lives is REQUIRED to end population growth. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Let’s look at UN numbers. Poor parents on average have five children. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

And one child dies. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Two parents are replaced by four surviving children in the next generation. This means that population is growing very fast among the poorest. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

This is the average family in the worst of places like Congo and Afghanistan. Today, where child mortality is highest, that’s where the population is growing faster than anywhere else. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

There are seven billion people in the world There are seven billion people in the world. One block represents one billion. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

The poorest two billions live like this. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

The other five billion have the average family of two parents and two children, and there are few child deaths. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

This is the majority of the world population, not only Europe and the US. It’s throughout religions and cultures: China, Iran, Mexico, large cities in Africa. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Today in most populations children just replace parents and the size of generations are no longer increasing. This means that the population will stop growing. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

How did so many people end up with small families How did so many people end up with small families? Their children stopped dying as they left extreme poverty and girls got education. Parents no longer had to compensate for child death by having many babies. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Large family stopped being an economic necessity or a social status symbol. With modern contraceptives, the majority of parents across the world decided to have a small family. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Therefore, by saving the lives of poor children and helping the last two billion to get out of poverty… Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

…these parents will also decide to have fewer children… Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

…and fewer. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Eventually, they will reach the two-child family. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

That showed the UN Family Size Forecast up to the end of the century That showed the UN Family Size Forecast up to the end of the century. Then, the world population is expected to stop growing. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Before it stops, another four billion people will be added to the world population. That’s a lot of people. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

But the longer poor children keep dying and this change is delayed, the more billions will be added. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Ending population growth starts by saving the poorest children. Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects 2012 www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview RELATED QUESTIONS Throughout history, women on average have given birth to more than 5 babies. But in the 1960’s the number suddenly started dropping. Today it's down to less than three. Most likely it will continue to drop down to two or even below. Short answer — It dropped How did babies per woman change in the world? Short answer — more adults Why is population growing even if babies per woman dropped? The future fast growth is not due to the same reasons as the fast growth historically. In the future, people will indeed survive longer, but life expectancy is only going to increase a little bit. And the number of children in the world is expected to remain stable. The main reason for the future fast growth is the highly predictable fill-up of adults, as larger young generations grow older as explained in another slideshow. Short answer — first slowly. Then fast. How did the world population change? In this short video Professor Hans Rosling shows how the size of the world population has changed over time. From the beginning of agriculture to the industrial revolution the population growth was very slow. Then the population started to grow rapidly because fewer died young. Today, most women have fewer children and therefore the rapid growth will soon be slowing down. World population will most likely stabilise around 11 billion towards the end of the century. www.gapminder.org/teach Version: 1 Free teaching material for a fact-based worldview

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