According to a Census Bureau report released last week, the City of New Orleans continues to rebuild.  The population of New Orleans fell drastically in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The good news is that New Orleans was the fastest growing city in the nation between July 1, 2006 and July 1, 2007; its population grew by 13.8 percent.  The bad news is that New Orleans may still have a long way to go.  On July 1, 2000, New Orleans had a population of 484,674.  On July 1, 2007, nearly two years after Katrina, its population was only 239,124, less than half its 2000 size.

As New Orleans continues its rebuilding process, getting an accurate census of the city in 2010 could prove critical to its future.  The data collected by the decennial census are used every year to determine the allocation of over $300 billion in federal dollars.  Census data are also used to allocate state funding for education and other programs.  But, with many areas of the City still undergoing major repairs and renovations, it may be hard to get an accurate count of those who have returned, particularly those living in temporary or shared residences. If the City is undercounted as a result, it could lose its fair share of federal and state funding.

For every community in the country, the decennial census is—or ought to be—a big deal.  That’s particularly true for New Orleans in 2010. “The Big Easy,” more than ever, needs a big count.

World Population Clock 6,709,117,382
As of 17:21 GMT (EST+5) Jul 10, 2008

Tomorrow, July 11, 2008, is World Population Day.  Last year the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) put the spotlight on urbanization, noting that 2008 would be the first year in which half the world's population lives in an urban setting.  This year’s theme, as announced by UNFPA, is “Family Planning: It’s a Right; Let’s Make it Real.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon noted in a public statement released earlier this week that world leaders proclaimed more than 40 years ago that “individuals have a basic right to determine freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children.”  And although Millennium Development Goal 5 (improving maternal health) affirms this, Ban warned that the goal of providing family planning services to those who want them “shows the least progress to date.”  Ban’s public statement noted that:

The rate of death for women as they give birth remains the starkest indicator of the disparity between rich and poor, both within and among countries. We already know what needs to be done to meet the basic health needs of women throughout their life cycle, especially during the reproductive years, pregnancy and childbirth. There are three basic interventions necessary to improve maternal health: skilled attendance at the time of birth, facilities to provide emergency obstetric care and family planning.

Family planning is a fundamental component of reproductive health as it allows for determining the spacing of pregnancies. Studies show that family planning has immediate benefits for the lives and health of mothers and their infants. Ensuring basic access to family planning could reduce maternal deaths by a third and child deaths by as much as 20 per cent.

And yet the benefits of family planning remain out of reach for many, especially for those who often have the hardest time getting the information and services they need to plan their families, such as the poor, marginalized populations and young people. Demand will only increase, as more than one billion people ages 15-24 enter their reproductive years.

Ban called on donor nations to honor the commitments made at the 1994 Cairo Conference so that the maternal health goals of MDG 5 can be achieved by 2015.  The demand for contraceptives, however, is clearly growing. 

The “Family Planning Worldwide 2008 Data Sheet,” released earlier this year by the Population Reference Bureau showed the broad scope of the challenge.  In releasing the 2008 data sheet, PRB reported that:

In nearly all developing countries, the number of women of reproductive age (ages 15-49) will grow between 2005 and 2015 because of the large numbers of young people in these countries.  In addition, the demand for contraceptives is projected to grow due to couple’s desire for smaller families.  As a result, the total cost of contraceptives supplies to meet couple’s needs is projected to rise by nearly 50 percent (in today’s U.S. dollars) in countries such as Tanzania and Nepal.  The costs are certain to grow throughout the developing world, placing pressure on governments to increase their family planning budgets, raise additional donor funds, obtain better prices for commodities, and/or shift a greater share of costs to users.

Shifting costs to users, however, could force many couples to make do without modern methods of contraception. With grain and other food prices soaring to record levels in 2008, many of the world’s poorest are struggling just to feed themselves.  With an estimated 100 million people being driven deeper into poverty by the recent rise in food prices, many low-income families will not be able to pay for family planning services. As PRB noted in its report earlier this year:

Nearly everywhere, wealthier women are more likely to use modern contraceptives than poorer women.  The disparities in use between rich and poor are most pronounced in countries with low contraceptive use overall, such as in Uganda.  In countries such as Honduras, contraceptive use overall may rise, but the poor still lag behind.  The gap usually starts to close only when contraceptive use becomes widely available, such as in Colombia.

The United States and Europe have long been on different population trajectories, but a recent article by Gilles Pison of France’s National Institute of Demographic Studies (Institut national d’études démographiques) in Population and Societies takes a closer look at the differences:

The population of EU-25 is one and half times that of the United States: 463 million versus 296 million. But under the medium scenario of the United Nations projections, Europe’s population may decline to 460 million by 2050, while that of the United States will reach 402 million, 100 million more than today. Beyond that date, between 2060 and 2070, the European Union, in its 2005 configuration, may even be overtaken by the United States.

 

Pison notes that the “birth rate is much lower in the European Union than in the United States (10.5 births per 1,000 inhabit¬ants versus 14.0) and population growth much slower (4.4% versus 9.5%).   He also reports that immigration currently “accounts for 40% of population growth in the U.S. and about 100% of growth in Europe.”

Pison also looks at the differences in life expectancy.

The meaningful indicator for comparison is life expectancy at birth, which measures the risk of dying at each age. In 2005, European women lived almost one and a half years longer than their American counterparts – 82.0 years versus 80.4 – and for men the figures were 75.8 years and 75.2 years respectively. Yet in 1980, the situation was the reverse. Since then, life expectancy has in¬creased much more slowly in the United States, gaining 5.2 years for men compared with 6.0 years in Europe, and just 3.0 years for women versus 5.2 years in Europe. The American slowdown is espe¬cially marked among women, and the gap with respect to countries such as France, Spain or Italy is now more than 3 years.

In looking at the failure of the U.S .to match European gains in life expectancy, Pison conjectures that the difference may be attributable to the fact that “around 16% of the American population have no health insurance,” but he also cites the rising rate of obesity in the U.S. as another potential contributor.

Pison’s article does not address the implications of Europe’s low fertility rates and concerns about a “birth dearth,” but a New York Times Magazine cover story (“Childless Europe”) this past weekend asked the question, “What happens to a continent when it stops making babies?” The article provides some interesting perspectives, but no clear answer to the question: 

Those inclined to see the glass as half-full include some people who are closest to the numbers. James W. Vaupel, founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, looking in particular at Germany’s demographic status, is downright sunny on the future. He, too, says that the shrinking and graying of European societies is inevitable, but he suggests that “on balance, the future will probably be better than the past. People will probably live longer, healthier lives. Continued economic growth, even if at a slower pace than in the past, will further raise standards of living.”

But Russo Shorto, the author of the article, also asked Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau for his perspective:

Haub wasn’t buying it. “Maybe tinkering with the retirement age and making other economic adjustments is good,” he said. “But you can’t go on forever with a total fertility rate of 1.2. If you compare the size of the 0-to-4 and 29-to-34 age groups in Spain and Italy right now, you see the younger is almost half the size of the older. You can’t keep going with a completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point. You can’t have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.”

When opinion leaders and policymakers talk about world population growth, they generally rely upon the “medium variant” projection issued by the UN’s Population Division.  In the UN’s 2006 Revision the “medium variant” shows global population growth rising to 9.2 billion by 2050.  That projection assumes however, that total fertility in all countries will converge eventually toward a level of 1.85 children per woman, though many countries will not reach that level by 2050. 

If fertility rates do not fall as fast as projected by the UN’s medium variant, world population (currently 6.7 billion) could exceed the projected 9.2 billion mark for 2050.  Earlier this month, the Census Bureau released the latest revision of its International Data Base (IDB).  Based on updated projections for 34 nations, the latest Census Bureau projection shows global population rising to 9.5 billion by 2050. 

The difference between the UN and Census Bureau’s projection for 2050 (9.2 billion vs. 9.5 billion) may not seem that large, but it’s important to remember that population growth has momentum.  Virtually everyone agrees that global population will, at some point in the 21st Century, stabilize and begin to decline.  But, when?  And at what level?

The latest Census Bureau report indicates that the rate of global population growth, currently about 1.2 percent per year, will decline in the next 42 years. Global population, however, will still be increasing by 0.5 percent a year by 2050.  That means that world population, currently growing by about 79 million people a year, would still be growing by close to 50 million people a year in 2050.

The Census Bureau's latest global population projection received virtually no coverage in the press.  But, as the debate grows about the role that population growth plays in climate change, the food crisis, and resource depletion, you can expect more attention will be paid to these projections—and their underlying assumptions.  Stay tuned.