Something Interesting/Something Stupid

Martin Walker reports some interesting demographic trends and draws some remarkably obtuse conclusions from them. The interesting facts are that fertility is climbing in Northern Europe and the US but falling most other places, except sub-quitorial Africa. The shallows of his analysis are on exhibit in the following:

Iran is experiencing what may be one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in human history. Thirty years ago, after the shah had been driven into exile and the Islamic Republic was being established, the fertility rate was 6.5. By the turn of the century, it had dropped to 2.2. Today, at 1.7, it has collapsed to European levels. The implications are profound for the politics and power games of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, putting into doubt Iran’s dreams of being the regional superpower and altering the tense dynamics between the Sunni and Shiite wings of Islam. Equally important are the implications for the economic future of Iran, which by ­mid­century may have consumed all of its oil and will confront the challenge of organizing a society with few people of working age and many ­pensioners.

Aside from Mr. Walker's quaint nineteenth century notion that Iran's future regional power status depends somehow on its bulging out of its borders with twice the population it can reasonably support, there is plenty of other twisted logic. Does he think that Iran would consume its oil more slowly if it had twice as many people? Why (aside from the obvious) does he think Iran is obsessed with nuclear technolgy? Even if one thinks massive overpopulation is somehow useful, isn't it a bit early to speculate on Iran's population in 2050? Being short a few forty-one year olds in 2050 will be no handicap if their are plenty of twenty to forty year olds.

More importantly, the data show a consistent association between low fertility and rate of gdp growth. No other factor is more central to China's transformation from enfeebled giant to superpower. It is far more likely that Iran's current low fertility rate will produce rapid economic, social, and political progress than that it will somehow fatally weaken it in 2050 - not that Iran is in much danger of becoming a superpower in any case. What it can hope for, and low fertility rates will help, is to become modern, wealthy, and locally powerful.

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