Sen discusses global population growth
by Irma S. Jarcho
Nobel Laureate in Economics Amartya Sen presented a session on "Global Population Growth: Causes and Implications" under the auspices of The Harvard School of Pubic Health at the Harvard Club on 14 April 1999. The panel discussion, moderated by Tom Brokaw, included a distinguished roster of well-known figures in the field of population and health.
Dr. Sen, Professor Emeritus of Harvard University and currently Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, traced the history of concerns about overpopulation, starting of course, with Malthus. In Sen's view, though much has changed, and some of our worst fears have not been realized, there can be no comfortable view about population.
Sen delineated four ways in which world population can be reduced:
1) economic hardship, which speaks for itself.
2) legal compulsion, as has been attempted in China through their one-child policy. Sen did not think that the reduction from a fertility rate of 2.8% in 1979 to 2.0 in 1984 in China could be ascribed solely to the strict regulations. To buttress this argument he cited the fact that in Kerala, India, where coercive measures were not applied in that same interval, the rate went down from 3.0 to 1.8.
3) economic compulsion: the rise in the cost of everything, especially education. Here Sen felt other things were also happening at the same time (colinearity) and that it was difficult to ascribe proportionate weight to any one factor.
4) sharpened industrial perspective: Here Sen ascribed the greatest weight to improvements in gender equity.
In Sen's opinion, the two greatest influences in reducing population are educating women and giving them the opportunity to work. It may be that population increases will harm everyone in the long run but, for now, it is evident that anything that increases the voice of women within the family will result in lowered population.
There are other factors at work, and it is difficult to separate them and ascribe the proper weight to each. We know, for example, that lowering infant mortality will lower fertility. You don't have to have as many children if fewer die.
Sen mentioned other factors affecting population. Among them were what he called mortality crises -- e.g., the increased death rate in Russia and Africa because of AIDS. A second factor is refugee displacement, which tends to be permanent. Displaced persons generally do not go back to their homeland. A third factor Sen touched upon, briefly, because at present so little is known, is the effects on population ratios of advances such as new techniques in in vitro fertilization. There are areas where a great preponderance of boys are born because of sex selection. We do not know what the result will be.
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