Archive Article: Teenagers To Rule The World. 24 Oct 03
December 22, 2008

Don’t judge the rest of the world’s population by what you see in Australia or New Zealand. We are aging countries – and not necessarily representative of the world’s growing population.

The United Nations Fund For Population Activities has just published its “State of the World Population 2003“. As usual, it makes very interesting reading.

This year’s focus in on the health of adolescents. Nearly half of all the world’s people are aged under the age of 25 years. Within that group are people aged between 10 and 19 – about 1.2 billion. This is the largest numbers of teenagers in world history.

Almost 90 per cent of these people live in the developing countries. They are not necessarily destined for a happy life. They are growing up – or dying – in areas of the world’s worst poverty and violence. About 238 million youth face the constraints of extreme poverty. A large percentage survive without their parents, or are marginalised for other reasons, including humanitarian emergencies, migration, disability, poor health or family dissolution.

When it comes to the provision of social services, young people tend to miss out – especially when compared with other arms of government (notably the military). They cannot organize military coups like the defence forces can. The defence forces can insist – at the barrel of a gun if need be – that more money be spent on them. But young people cannot.

This annual report sets out a number of steps that governments ought to take. Hopefully, it will be followed up by the Australian Government, which for the past decade or so has reduced the level of Australia’s foreign aid. As Australia has got richer, so it has got meaner. The Report also contains a set of tables at the back dealing with demographic, social and economic indicators. In the Oceania region, Australia and New Zealand have virtually zero population growth. Australia is currently at almost 20 million and is expected to reach almost 26 million people by 2050. New Zealand is now at 4 million and is expected to get to 4.5 million by 2050.

But Papua New Guinea goes from 5.7 million to 11 million in that time; Melanesia goes from 7.5 million to 14 million, and Indonesia from 220 million to almost 294 million.

Another interesting statistic concerns Russia. Its population is currently at 143 million and it will go down to 102 million by 2050. Russia is the world’s most important example of a developed country to have a declining population. Other countries have virtually zero population growth or a slight decline (Italy is expected to decline from 57 million to 45 million).

But the Russian collapse is amazing. People seem to be giving up living. Life has become so hard for so many people that it is becoming unbearable. At this rate of decline, the entire Russian population will be gone by the middle of the 22nd Century.

America, by the way, is not following the pattern of other developed countries. Its population is currently 294 million and it is expected to be almost 408 million in 2050. Most of the growth is due to migration (legal and illegal) and the growing significance of the Hispanic populations.

Overall, a very interesting annual report, which gives us much to think about.

Broadcast Friday 24th October 2003 on Radio 2GB’s “Brian Wilshire Programme” at 9pm