In 2050, Ethiopia's population to top 175 million while Germany's decline from 75 to 72 Million

BY ARLENE MARTIN Associate Editor - News martina@jamaicaobserver.com

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC — Ethiopia and other less developed countries account for nearly 89 per cent of the more than 140 million births across the world up to September of this year.

They also account for 79 per cent of the deaths recorded worldwide over the same period.

According to the recently released 2010 World Population Data Sheet compiled by the Washington, DC-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), 44.7 million of the 56.8 million persons who died between January and September lived in less developed countries, while 125.9 million of the 140.2 million children born over the nine-month period were to mothers in less developed countries.

In fact, the data — aspects of which were discussed at the opening of a training seminar for Women's Edition (2010/12) participants in the US capital on Monday — show that 267 babies are born worldwide every minute. Of that total, 240 were in less developed countries that also account for 85 of the 108 deaths that occur every 60 seconds.

Less developed countries, as classified by the United Nations, include those that make up the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania — minus Australia, Japan and New Zealand, which together with Europe and North America are lumped as the more developed regions.

The data shows that up until September, 5.7 billion of the world's 6.89 billion people reside in less developed countries, with China — the world's most populous nation -- accounting for 1.3 billion.

But even with its staggering population count, China accounted for only 21 per cent of the world's deaths and 13 per cent of births between January and September, the latter largely due to its one-child policy to control population growth.

The Population Clock shows the scenario in less developed countries with and without data from China. In explaining why this was necessary, senior demographer at the PRB, Carl Haub had earlier told the Observer that without the breakdown, the true picture in the less developed world would have been blurred.

"China has a large statistical effect on less developed country statis-tics and, when included, masks the true situation in the rest of less developed countries," Haub said.

Meanwhile, as concerns mount as to whether Millennium Development Goal No 4 to reduce child mortality by 2015 is achievable, the Population Clock shows that even with marginal declines, infant deaths in less developed countries were almost 79 times more than that occurred in more developed nations.

According to the data, less developed countries had 6.3 million maternal deaths over the period compared to 80,000 in more developed countries.

This disparity is largely due to what Haub described as "the unfortunate usual suspects".

"Comparatively low pre- and post-natal care, deliveries with no trained medical attendant and outside of a health facility, poor nutrition and breastfeeding practices, and low rates of immunisation," he explained to the Observer.

Jamaica, with an infant mortality rate of 26 per 1,000 births, is among the countries that have seen continued declines over the past decade, which the PRB attributes to several improvements, including increased access to pre- and post-natal care.

Meanwhile, the rates of natural increase in the two groups of countries are not expected to change much in the future. Putting the figures into perspective Monday, the PRB's Mary Kent explained that even with relatively similar numbers of inhabitants now, the picture in less developed Ethiopia with 85 million and developed Germany with 82 million people will look quite differently in 2050 when the population in Ethiopia is expected to top 175 million, while that in Germany will decline to around 72 million.

"Really, it's the difference in fertility rate; Ethiopia now averages 5.4 and Germany, 1.3," she explained.

"And then there is a big difference in population below the age of 15-44 per cent in Ethiopia and 14 per cent in Germany."

India is also still on track to overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2050. According to the data sheet, India's 1.19 billion population will grow to 1.75 billion in 2050, while China will only add about one million more people.

In the case of Jamaica, the projection is still for the population to grow to 2.9 million by 2025, but decline by about 200,000 by 2050.

Jamaica Observer.