A report released on Tuesday by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warns of “tectonic population changes [that] will shape the future of humanity for generations to come”. The cause is a decline in global fertility rates “at a breathtaking scale and pace”.
The UN has, up until now, been loath to give a view on fertility, perhaps because it is such an explosive subject. The issue of whether our species should have fewer children or more is often tangled up in debates about climate change, feminism, resource scarcity and even racism.
In his influential “Essay on the Principle of Population”, published in 1798, the demographer Thomas Malthus argued the human population would eventually outgrow the planet’s resources. Although our numbers have increased eight-fold since then, Malthusian fears have proved largely unfounded. As countries became richer, their fertility levels fell. While birth rates remained high in much of the developing world over the past century, it was generally accepted that these, too, would fall as these societies became more prosperous.
The theory behind this is that because wealthier societies enjoy greater life expectancy, lower child mortality, improved female literacy and independence, and more urbanised lifestyles, their adults are less likely to “need” many children.
Today, birth rates in much of the developing world are indeed falling – but, as the UN report explains, the reasons are complex, and not altogether positive. In many cases, financial difficulty – not prosperity – is the culprit. Moreover, this is the case in some wealthier countries, too.
Across the 14 developed and developing countries the UNFPA surveyed, 39 per cent of people cited “financial limitations” as a reason for not having a child despite wanting one.
Today, birth rates in much of the developing world are indeed falling – but the reasons are complex, and not altogether positive
Time is another issue. Modern life often demands several hours a day in commute time or employment in a second job. That leaves less time for child-rearing.
The result is a kind of dark mirror of the refutation to Malthus. Development and modernity appear to have overcorrected in freeing us from the burden of unsustainably large families – they are now beginning to box us into unsustainably small ones.
“One in four people currently live in a country where the population size is estimated to have already peaked,” the UNFPA points out. “The result will be societies as we have never seen them before: communities with larger proportions of elderly, smaller shares of young people, and, possibly, smaller workforces.” By the end of the century, the global population could shrink for the first time since the 1300s, when the Black Death ravaged Europe and Asia.
In some wealthier countries where birth rates have already plummeted, the debate has become polarised. Some pro-natalists – advocates of more births – warn of native populations being “replaced” by foreign immigrants, while others predict a collapse in pension systems as the workforce diminishes. Some of Malthus’s intellectual descendants, meanwhile, point to climate change as a reason to welcome population decline.
According to the UNFPA, however, these concerns are beside the point. The real crisis in this picture, it says, is the growing lack of reproductive agency. Millions of families around the world are unable to have as many children as they’d like, but millions of others are also having more than they intended. The former is fast overtaking the latter as the dominant trend, but in both cases the problem is that a huge number of couples feel they do not have control over the size of their families.
This is a reminder that while it is, of course, important to have policy discussions that promote sustainable population growth, ultimately the guiding principle of fertility ought to be freedom – ensuring that couples are fully empowered to build the kind of family that works best for them.
That is a very different – and much more fruitful – way of framing the matter.
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
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How much of your income do you need to save?
The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.
In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)
Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.
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Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
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Wolves 1 (Traore 67')
Tottenham 2 (Moura 8', Vertonghen 90 1')
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5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
HWJN
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Yasir%20Alyasiri%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Baraa%20Alem%2C%20Nour%20Alkhadra%2C%20Alanoud%20Saud%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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Monday, January 28
Iran v Japan, Hazza bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Tuesday, January 29
UAEv Qatar, Mohamed Bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Friday, February 1
Final, Zayed Sports City Stadium (6pm)
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
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Argentina 4 Haiti 0
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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The five pillars of Islam
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
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THE SPECS
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 258hp at 5,000-6,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm from 1,550-4,400rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.4L/100km
Price, base: from D215,000 (Dh230,000 as tested)
On sale: now
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
