1. Life & Death & Policy Modeling
Paul Fischbeck
Social and Decision Sciences
Engineering and Public Policy
Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation
Carnegie Mellon University
Demo/Pop Model 1

2. Population Is Critical
Clinton Connects Overpopulation to Climate Change      
During a visit to India, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed not only the administration’s commitment to tackle “global climate change,” but also her willingness to link it to overpopulation.
Al Gore's newest book
Gore stresses that governments should start to enact policies to slow the population growth that leads to higher energy demands. While past studies suggest that industrialization is what brings about smaller birth rates, current research demonstrates this is not the case.
“Go forth and multiply less,” the Economist 11/9/2009
Sometime in the next few years, the world will reach a milestone: half of humanity will be having only enough children to replace itself
Demo/Pop Model

3. Trade-offs Birth rates Death rates Quality of life
Natural reduction as in Europe
Forced reduction as in China
Death rates
Advances in healthcare
Significant improvement over time (life expectancy)
Dramatic changes possible for developing countries
Quality of life
Can there be better quality of life without improved health care?
Productivity improvement
What combination will work at controlling population?
For these metrics, what should the world’s values be?
Minimum, average, median, average, maximum?

4. Total Fertility Rates

5. Life Expectancy and Fertility Rates

6. Transition?

7. Gapminder World www.Gapminder.org
Graphical interface into dynamic data
Web-based
Downloadable world database
Includes social, economic, environmental data over time
Easy to add new variables

8. Population Model Excel-based Downloadable at www.epp.cmu.edu/csir
Spin-off from Spring’s project course
Interactive
Downloadable at
Expanding capability
Consumption
Environmental
Dial-in a country

9. Inputs

10. Improving Healthcare
Will it continue? What if does?

11. Business as Usual

12. Stop Improving Healthcare

13. Stop Immigration

14. Stop Immigration and Improving Healthcare

15. European Birth Rates

16. Effects of Different Healthcare & Birth Rates on 2110 Population

17. Effects of Different Healthcare & Birth Rates on Worker/Retiree Ratio

18. Annual Per Capita Healthcare Costs

19. Benefit for Spending More?
US is spending more
but has lower risk
for older population
But what happens when healthcare costs are allocated by age?

20. Costs by Age Categories
US is spending much
more for older ages

21. What If … US Had European Healthcare Costs?

22. Retired and Dying before 85 (Male)

23. US-Norwegian Comparison
Norway was just cited by the UN as having the highest quality of life in the world
US was ranked 13th
Worried about dying before retirement age …
Much more likely in US
Approximately 25% more likely for both men and women
Given a retiree, dying before 85 …
all Scandinavian countries relative to the US, Norway is generally better for women and worse for men
US women are more likely to die except for the oldest group

24. Dying before 65

25. Dying before 85

26. Conclusions
How tightly connected are quality of life and healthcare issues?
What happens if the world evolves to developed-country levels of quality of life and healthcare?
Difficult policy issues must be faced if population reduction or stabilization is to occur
Population stabilization can be achieved but does it include demographic imbalance?
Difficult societal planning problems arise (workers/retiree ratio and healthcare improvement) 26