Sustainable fertility rate
There have been concerns about birth rates for years, usually they are too high and they are trying to lower the populations in many countries. ALthough there are many countries still with fertility rates too high there also a large amount of countries that have fertility rates too low and are working on increasing them.[1]
What is a sustainable rate?
editWhen populations reproduce at the level of 1.5 children per family or lower, than the population decreases due to the fact that the replacement level is 2 children per family. Over 65 countries, mostly in Europe have birth rates lower than 2 children per family.The reason why this is not politically sustainable is because of a few reasons.
-Low fertility rates lessen the population size of children. This means that the population will decrease much more in the future, if this continues to happen then these countries will not be Demographically Sustainable, which introduces another issue.
| Country/Area | Total Fertility rate |
|---|---|
| Hong Kong | 1.0 |
| Armenia, Czech Republic, Ukraine | 1.1 |
| Andorra, Bulgaria, Georgia, Latvia, Macao, Russia, Slovenia, Spain | 1.2 |
| Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia | 1.3 |
| Canada, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Moldova, POland | 1.4 |
-Countries with Low fertility rates decrease in the population very quickly. If low fertility rates are maintained for a number of years then it will be harder to reverse.
-The solution for fixing fertility rates depends in the cause of the Low fertility rate many common causes are male dominated families and economic crisis (cost too much to raise a child). In order to fix these low rates, policies are written to ensure that people with children are not affected by the economic troubles. Overall, a sustainable fertility rate would be 2 children per family, the replacement rate. Because for each two parents there are two children. This is the replacement rate around the world, but a populations increase and decrease the replacement rates may change. [2]
Does Fertility rate hinder sustainable development
editFor many years policies have been written stating that population is affecting sustainable development. But truly population and fertility rates are not the source of non-sustainable development. Replacement rates and multiple studies on population are not the solution to further encourage sustainable development. [3]
References
edit- ^ 東海大学紀要, 教養学部. "Declining Total Fertility Rate for Sustainable Development." Journal of the Faculty of Liberal Arts 36 (2006): 115-139. National institute of informatics. Web. 14 Oct. 2009. <http://ci.nii.ac.jp/vol_issue/nels/AN00157087_en.html>.
- ^ McDonald, Peter. Population Today Sept. 2001: n. pag. Population Reference Bureau. Web. 13 Oct. 2009. <http://www.prb.org/Articles/2001/ LowFertilityNotPoliticallySustainable.aspx>.
- ^ Jacobson, Jodi L. "Population mythology. (population and economic development) (Perspective)." The Amicus Jounal 16 (Spring 1994): 9(2). Gale . Web. 13 Oct. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/ retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%2 8en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28K0%2CNone%2C26%29sustainable+fertility+rate%24&sgHitCount Type=None&inPS=true&sort=DateDescend&searchType=BasicSearchForm&tabID=T003&prodId =IPS&searchId=R1¤tPosition=1&userGroupName=lafa59078&docId=A15353211&docTyp e=IAC&contentSet=IAC-Documents>.