World Development Report 1984

have fewer children (see Box 1.1); absolute annual FIGURE 1.2
increases will be close to or more than 80 million Indicators of standard of living, selected countries
people a year in developing countries well into the and years
next century. The baby "bulge" that resulted from Primary school enrollment rate
the trends of high fertility and falling mortality that (percent)
started twenty years ago is now entering child- l00
Singapore
Chile
bearing age. In China, for example, the number of
women aged twenty to thirty-four almost doubled United States
Brazia
Korea
between 1950 and 1980; throughout the 1980s, as E and Wales B anIadesh
the children born in the 1960s enter their twenties,
the number of women marrying and bearing children
will continue to increase. To reduce population
growth to 1 percent a year by the early 1990s,
50
Japan
Sudan
$ Ethiopia
couples in China would need to have fewer than 0
two children on average. 1900 1960 1980
These considerations should not obscure the Literacy rate
central fact that the world's population growth (percent)
rate is falling. The latter part of the twentieth cen- United States
tury has been a demographic watershed, the high England and Chile
point of several centuries of accelerating growth Wales Korea
and the beginning of what demographers project Brazil
to be a continuous decline, until world population 50 Malaysia
stabilizes sometime in the twenty-second century. India
Though absolute numbers will continue to
increase for several decades, the issue now is how
25 Sudan
Bangladesh
Pakistan
quickly the rate of increase can be slowed downand
how individual countries (and the interna-
Ethiopia
tional community) are to cope with continued 1900 1960 1980
growth in the meantime. Life expectancy at birth
(years)
The rise in living standards 60 iCrhie
Until the seventeenth or eighteenth century, life Sweden
Korea
Malaysia India
expectancy had probably changed little, and few United States Pakistan
people were literate. Since 1850, however, while 40 England and Vales . Sudan
world population size has more than tripled,
income per person has increased perhaps six times
in real terms, life expectancy has risen dramati-
Japan Ethiopia
cally, and education has become widespread. Pro- 20
gress in education and life expectancy in develop- 1900 1960 1980
ing countries has been especially notable since GNP per capita
1950. Even in today's poorer developing countries, (constant 1980-82 dollars)
primary school enrollment rates and life expec- M United States
tancy are above the levels achieved by richer countries
eighty years ago, though income per person
3,000
and adult literacy are not (see Figure 1.2). 2,000
But these averages can be misleading. Though England and Chile
most people are better off today, for many the
gains have been small. Since 1950 it has been the
countries
with
wltn
lower
lower
levels
levels or
of income
mcome
per
per
person
person
that have had much faster population growth. In
those countries absolute increases in income have
been much smaller than in the countries which
1,000
Sweden s
Japan
,Sinp Brazil aore
; i
Malaysia
.. Korea
Sudan
Pakistan
India
E thiopa
Sources: Tan and Haines, 1984; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960; Keyfitz
began the period already richer. Consider a simple and Fleiger, 1968; Mosk, 1983; Johansson, 1977; Zimmerman, 1965.
5