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May 2007, Vol. 13, No. 1Focus On: Demography The demographic transformation of the world in the 100 years between 1950 and 2050 will be marked both by a vast expansion in human numbers and by the emergence of a low-fertility, highly urbanized, and increasingly elderly world population. These changes are posing challenges for national governments and international institutions. The responses those bodies have arrived at, or must now formulate, are the subject of a new volume, The Political Economy of Global Population Change, a supplement to the Population Council’s journal Population and Development Review. The volume’s contributing authors, representing the disciplines of history, economics, political science, and demography, take up major components of this subject—looking both to the experience of the second half of the twentieth century and forward to 2050. Challenges of
population change Cambridge political scientist Christopher Clapham explores African population change. Africa’s situation combines a heavy burden of disease, still-rapid population growth, and deep problems of governance. Clapham paints a nuanced picture of the region’s prospects for development and demographic transition, but with the AIDS epidemic an overshadowing reality. Two other regionally focused essays cover China and India, the world’s demographic giants and emerging economic heavyweights. Eduard B. Vermeer, an expert on China, investigates the country’s dramatic demographic change in its political context, and economist Deepak Lal of the University of California offers a sweeping appraisal of population in India’s development, past and future.A pair of essays take up environmental issues. The Georgetown University environmental historian J.R. McNeill surveys the effects of population change on the natural environment as they have played out in the industrial era. Less alarmist than many, he sees new technologies—more resource efficient and less polluting—as key to a greener future. A companion essay by David G. Victor, of Stanford University and the Council on Foreign Relations, treats the problematic concept of sustainable development, studying what it means for the urban built environment (where humans are increasingly concentrated), for the lightly populated countryside, and for unpopulated “wilderness.” Political scientist Aristide R. Zolberg, of the New School for Social Research, examines the management of international migration in the United States and other rich democracies in the post–World War II period. While recognizing the heightened security concerns following 9/11 and the demands for stricter border controls against illegal entry, Zolberg favors a broadly liberal stance on immigration, both temporary (such as guestworker programs) and permanent. Finally, two essays by the editors introduce and conclude the volume. The first recounts the history of political responses to high fertility and rapid population growth since the 1950s; the second surveys the emerging political demography of the world system—looking in particular at the social and political problems that Western societies are likely to face as economic globalization extends to encompass the demographic giants. Population and Development Review seeks to advance knowledge of the interrelationships between population and socioeconomic development and provides a forum for discussion of related issues of public policy. The editors of this special issue are Paul Demeny, Distinguished Scholar and editor, Population and Development Review, and Geoffrey McNicoll, Senior Associate, both at the Population Council. Source
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