HOW MAISTY PEOPLE ON EARTH? — DESMOND 561 



In the heavily populated, less developed countries of Africa, Asia, 

 and Latin America, the application of scientific techniques to defer 

 death is generally accepted and quite widely practiced ; but the control 

 of fertility has not begun to be practiced extensively enough to affect 

 birth rates. As a result, rapidly falling death rates combined with 

 traditionally high birth rates have touched off a surge in the rate 

 of population growth. 



Modern public health methods have cut death rates by one-third 

 or more in a single year in some countries. With the drastic decline 

 in infant and child mortality, the proportion of the population under 

 15 years of age tends to increase. It is now over 40 percent in many 

 of these countries, as compared with about 20 percent in some coun- 

 tries of western and northern Europe. 



It is expected that the growth rate will increase even further in 

 many areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as death rates continue 

 to decline. This will surely happen unless effective measures can be 

 devised which will speed up the demographic transition and the rate 

 of social change. Simply stated, acceptable measures must be found 

 to bring birth rates into balance with modern low death rates, thereby 

 completing the demographic transition. Unless birth rates are re- 

 duced, population growth rates will continue upward until they are 

 checked eventually by a rise in the death rate. 



Although information about the number and distribution of the 

 world's population and vital rates is far more extensive today than 

 at any time in history, there are still large blank spaces in the world's 

 demographic map. Only about half of the world's births and ap- 

 proximately two-thirds of the deaths are formally registered. 



Discussing the present rapid rate of population growth, the latest 

 United Nations Demographic Yearbook points out that approximately 

 one-half of the world's population lives in only four countries — China 

 (mainland), India, the U.S.S.E, and the U.S.A. — and that the reli- 

 ability of world-population estimates depends largely on the accuracy 

 of the information available about the population of these coimtries : 



Similarly the 1950-59 average i-ate of increase, estimated in the range of 1.5 

 to 2.0 percent per annum for the four largest populations and 1.6 to 1.9 percent 

 per annum for the remainder of the world, can be placed, in view of possibly 

 compensating errors, between 1.6 and 1.9 percent per annum for the world 

 as a whole. . . . 



Actually in view of declining mortality, it is virtually certain that the rate of 

 world population growth has now surpassed 1.5 percent per annum, and quite 

 possible that it has attained 2.0 percent per annum. Because of this decline 

 of mortality, world population certainly increased in the year 1959 by at least 

 45 million, and possibly by as much as 55 million. Again it is evident that 

 much of the uncertainty is caused by the lack of precise knowledge regarding 

 the population of China (mainland). Large margins of error must also be 

 allowed for in the estimated annual increases in India, in other parts of Asia, 

 and in Africa. 



