The End of World Population Growth in the 21st Century --New Challenges for Human Capital Formation & Sustainable Development

THE FACT THAT the world’s population is likely to stop growing within the next few decades, and that it is likely to stabilize at around 9 billion (so there is no longer a future “doubling time”), still goes unrecognized in many environmental and development discussions. As its title suggests, this book examines the implications of this fact. Coming out of the work on population of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), it discusses the anticipated population trends of the twenty-first century, with a particular focus on the ageing of populations. Population growth is also discussed in relation to sustainable development, climate change, urbanization and the variables that affect population growth
The book is organized into ten chapters. The first provides an introduction and gives the background to IIASA’s work on population. Chapter two reviews predictions of future population growth. Chapter three discusses population ageing and the application of probabilistic population forecasting. Chapter four looks at population changes with regard to levels of education and what this implies for human capital within different nations, while Chapter five introduces and discusses an indicator called LLE (literate life expectancy), which combines information on demographic structure and human capital. Chapter six is based on an Ethiopian case study that examines links between population, environment, development and agriculture. Chapter seven discusses the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, looking at how the changing pattern of infection is influenced by level of education. Chapter eight considers the demographic differences between urban and rural China with regard to education. Chapter nine discusses the interaction between projected population changes and green gas emissions and climate change. It shows how alternative population paths during the twenty-first century would substantially influence greenhouse gas emissions in the long run, and also affect the ability of societies to adapt to climate change impacts. The concluding chapter pulls together the analyses presented in discussing the links between demographic change and sustainable development.