Religions and babies Hans Rosling

I’m going to talk about religion but

it’s a broad and very delicate subject

so I have to limit myself and therefore

I will limit myself to only talk about

the links between religion and sexuality

no this is a very serious talk so we’ll

talk of what I remember as the most

wonderful it’s when the young couple

whisper tonight we are going to make a

baby

my talk will be about the impact of

religions on the number of babies per

woman this is indeed important because

everyone understands that there is some

sort of limit on how many people we can

be on this planet and and there are some

people who say that the world population

is growing like this three billion in

1967 billion just last year and it will

continue to grow because they are

religions that stops women from having

few babies and it may continue like this

to what extent are these people right

when I was born that was less than 1

billion children in the world and today

2000 there’s almost 2 billion what has

happened since and what do the experts

predict will happen with a number of

children during this century this is a

quiz what do you think do you think it

will decrease to 1 billion will it

remain the same and be 2 billion by the

end of the century

with the number of children increase

here eat children up to 15 years or will

it continue in the same fast rate and be

4 billion children up there I will tell

you by the end of my speech but now what

does religion have to do with it when

you want to classify religion it’s more

difficult than you think you go to

Wikipedia and the first map you find is

this it divides the world into abra

Hammack religions and Eastern religion

not detailed enough so we went on and we

looked in Wikipedia we found this map

but that subdivide Christianity Islam

and Buddhism into many subgroups which

was too detailed there for a cap minder

we made our own map and it looks like

this it is each country’s a bubble the

size is the population big China big

India and the color now is the majority

religion it’s a religion where more than

50% of the people say that they belong

its Eastern religion in India and China

in neighboring Asian countries Islam is

the majority religion all the way from

the Atlantic Ocean across the Middle

East southern Europe and through Asia

all the way to Indonesia that’s what we

find

Islam majority and Christian majority

religions we see in these countries they

are blue and that is most countries in

America and Europe many countries in

Africa and a few in Asia the white here

are countries which cannot be classified

because one religion does not reach 50%

or there is doubt about the data or

there are some other reasons we were

careful with that so bear with our

simplicity now when I take you over to

this short this is in 1960 and now I

show the number of babies per woman here

two four or six many babies few babies

and here the income per person in

comparable dollars the reason for that

is that many people say you have to get

rich first before you get few babies so

low income here high income there and

indeed in 1960 you had to be a rich

Christian to a few babies the exception

was Japan Japan here was regarded as an

exception otherwise it was only

Christian country but there were also

many Christian countries that had six to

seven babies per woman but they were in

Latin America or they were in Africa and

countries with Islamist majority

religion Oh

of them almost had six to seven children

per woman irregardless of the income

level and all the Eastern religions

except Japan had the same level now

let’s see what has happened in the world

I start the world and here we go 1962

can you see they’re getting a little

richer but the number of babies per

woman is falling look at China they’re

falling fairly fast and all the

muslim-majority countries across the

income are coming down has do the

Christian majority countries in the

middle income range and when we enter is

to this century you find more than half

the mankind down here and by 2010 we are

actually eighty percent of humans who

live in countries with about two

children per woman it’s a quite amazing

development which are happened and these

are countries from United States here

with $40,000 per capita France Russia

Iran Mexico Turkey

Algeria Indonesia India and all the way

to Bangladesh and Vietnam which has less

than five percent of the income per

person the United States and the same

amount of babies per woman I can tell

you that the date on number of children

per woman is surprisingly good in all

countries we get that from the census

data it’s not one of these statistics

which is very doubtful so what we can

conclude is you don’t have to get rich

to have few children it has happened

across the world and when we look at at

religions we can see that the Eastern

religions indeed that’s not one single

country with majority of that religion

that has more than three children

whereas with Islamist majority religion

and Christianity you see countries all

the way but there’s no major difference

there’s no major difference between

these religions there is the difference

with income the countries which has many

babies per woman here they have quite

low income most of them are in

sub-saharan Africa but there are also

countries here like go

Tamala like Papua New Guinea like German

and Afghanistan many things that

Afghanistan here and Congo which have

suffered severe conflicts that they

don’t have fast population growth it’s

the other way around in the world today

it’s the countries that have the highest

mortality rates that have the fastest

population growth because the death of a

child is compensated by one more child

these countries have six children per

woman

they haven’t sad death rate of one to

two children per woman but thirty years

from now Afghanistan will go from 30

million to 60 million Congo will go from

60 220 that’s where we have the first

population growth and many think that

all these countries they are stagnant

but they are not let me compare Senegal

muslim-dominated country with a

Christian dominated country Ghana I take

them backwards here to their

independence when they were up here in

the beginning of the 1960’s just look

what they have done it’s an amazing

improvement from seven children per

woman they’ve gone all the way down to

between four and five it’s a tremendous

improvement so what does it take when we

know quite well what is needed in these

countries you need to have children to

survive you need to get out of the

deepest poverty so children are not of

importance for work in the family you

need to have access to some family

planning and you need the fourth factor

which perhaps is the most important

factor but let me illustrate that fourth

factor by looking at Qatar here we have

Qatar today and there we have Bangladesh

today if I take these countries back to

the years of their independence which is

almost the same years seventy one

seventy two it’s a quite amazing

development which are happened look at

Bangladesh in Qatar with so different

incomes is almost the same drop in

number of babies per woman and what is

the reason in Qatar well I do as I

always do I went to the statistical

Authority of Qatar to their web page is

a very good webpage I recommend it and I

looked up

oh yeah you can have lots of fun here

and this provided free of charge I found

Couture social trends very interesting

lots to read I found fertility at birth

and I looked at total fertility rate per

woman these are the scholars and expert

in the government agency in Qatar and

they say the most important factors are

increased age at first marriage

increased educational level of a Qatari

women and more women integrated in the

labor force I couldn’t agree more

science couldn’t agree more

this is a country that indeed had gone

through a very very interesting

modernization so what it is is these

four children should survive children

shouldn’t be needed for work women

should get education and join the labor

force and flam and the planning should

be accessible now look again at this the

average number of children in the world

is like in Colombia’s 2.4 today there

are countries up here which are very

poor and that’s where family planning

that the child survival is needed I

strongly recommend Melinda Gates lost

TED talk and here down there are many

companies which are less than two

children per woman so when I go back now

to give you the answer of the quiz it’s

two we have reached peak child the

number of children is not growing any

longer in the world we are still

debating peak oil but we are definitely

reached peak child and the world

population will stop growing United

Nations Population division that said

they will stop growing at ten billion

but why do they grow if the number of

children doesn’t grow well I will show

you here I will use these card boxes in

which your notebooks came they are quite

useful for educational purposes each

card box is one billion people and there

are two billion children in the world

there are two billion young people

between 15 and 30 these are round in

number then there is 1 billion between

30 and 45 almost 1

in 45 and 60 and then it’s my box this

is me 60 plus we are here on top so what

will happen now is what we call the big

fail and you can see that it’s like 3

billion missing here they are not

missing because they’ve died they were

never born

because before 1980 members must fewer

people born than they were during the

last 30 years so what will happen now is

quite straightforward the old sadly we

will die the rest of you you will grow

older and you will get 2 billion

children then the old will die the rest

will grow older and get 2 billion

children and then again the old will die

and you will get 2 billion children this

is the great fill up it’s inevitable can

you see that this increase took place

without life getting longer and without

having children religion has very little

to do with the number of babies per

woman all the religions in the world are

fully capable to maintain their values

and adapt to this new world and we will

be just 10 billion in this world if the

poorest people get out of poverty their

children survive they get access to

family planning that is needed but it’s

unbeatable that we will be 2 to 3

billion more so when you discuss and

when you plan for the resources then the

energy needed for the future for human

beings on this planet you have to plan

for 10 billions thank you very much