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