Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309381193
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 89
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Book Description
Fertility rates and population growth influence economic development. The marked declines in fertility seen in some developing nations have been accompanied by slowing population growth, which in turn provided a window of opportunity for rapid economic growth. For many sub-Saharan African nations, this window has not yet opened because fertility rates have not declined as rapidly there as elsewhere. Fertility rates in many sub-Saharan African countries are high: the total rate for the region is estimated to be 5.1 births per woman, and rates that had begun to decline in many countries in the region have stalled. High rates of fertility in these countries are likely to contribute to continued rapid population growth: the United Nations projects that the region's population will increase by 1.2 billion by 2050, the highest growth among the regions for which there are projections. In June 2015, the Committee on Population organized a workshop to explore fertility trends and the factors that have influenced them. The workshop committee was asked to explore history and trends related to fertility, proximate determinants and other influences, the status and impact of family planning programs, and prospects for further reducing fertility rates. This study will help donors, researchers, and policy makers better understand the factors that may explain the slow pace of fertility decline in this region, and develop methods to improve family planning in sub-Saharan Africa.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309180090
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
In sub-Saharan Africa, older people make up a relatively small fraction of the total population and are supported primarily by family and other kinship networks. They have traditionally been viewed as repositories of information and wisdom, and are critical pillars of the community but as the HIV/AIDS pandemic destroys family systems, the elderly increasingly have to deal with the loss of their own support while absorbing the additional responsibilities of caring for their orphaned grandchildren. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa explores ways to promote U.S. research interests and to augment the sub-Saharan governments' capacity to address the many challenges posed by population aging. Five major themes are explored in the book such as the need for a basic definition of "older person," the need for national governments to invest more in basic research and the coordination of data collection across countries, and the need for improved dialogue between local researchers and policy makers. This book makes three major recommendations: 1) the development of a research agenda 2) enhancing research opportunity and implementation and 3) the translation of research findings.
Author: Charles Teller
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048189187
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
"The heated Malthusian-Bosrupian debates still rage over consequences of high population growth, rapid urbanization, dense rural populations and young age structures in the face of drought, poverty, food insecurity, environmental degradation, climate change, instability and the global economic crisis. However, while facile generalizations about the lack of demographic change and lack of progress in meeting the MDGs in sub-Saharan Africa are commonplace, they are often misleading and belie the socio-cultural change that is occurring among a vanguard of more educated youth. Even within Ethiopia, the second largest country at the Crossroads of Africa and the Middle East, different narratives emerge from analysis of longitudinal, micro-level analysis as to how demographic change and responses are occurring, some more rapidly than others. The book compares Ethiopia with other Africa countries, and demonstrates the uniqueness of an African-type demographic transition: a combination of poverty-related negative factors (unemployment, disease, food insecurity) along with positive education, health and higher age-of-marriage trends that are pushing this ruggedly rural and land-locked population to accelerate the demographic transition and stay on track to meet most of the MDGs. This book takes great care with the challenges of inadequate data and weak analytical capacity to research this incipient transition, trying to unravel some of the complexities in this vulnerable Horn of Africa country: A slowly declining population growth rates with rapidly declining child mortality, very high chronic under-nutrition, already low urban fertility but still very high rural fertility; and high population-resource pressure along with rapidly growing small urban places”
Author: David Canning
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804907
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
Africa is poised on the edge of a potential takeoff to sustained economic growth. This takeoff can be abetted by a demographic dividend from the changes in population age structure. Declines in child mortality, followed by declines in fertility, produce a 'bulge' generation and a large number of working age people, giving a boost to the economy. In the short run lower fertility leads to lower youth dependency rates and greater female labor force participation outside the home. Smaller family sizes also mean more resources to invest in the health and education per child boosting worker productivity. In the long run increased life spans from health improvements mean that this large, high-earning cohort will also want to save for retirement, creating higher savings and investments, leading to further productivity gains. Two things are required for the demographic dividend to generate an African economic takeoff. The first is to speed up the fertility decline that is currently slow or stalled in many countries. The second is economic policies that take advantage of the opportunity offered by demography. While demographic change can produce more, and high quality, workers, this potential workforce needs to be productively employed if Africa is to reap the dividend. However, once underway, the relationship between demographic change and human development works in both directions, creating a virtuous cycle that can accelerate fertility decline, social development, and economic growth. Empirical evidence points to three key factors for speeding the fertility transition: child health, female education, and women's empowerment, particularly through access to family planning. Harnessing the dividend requires job creation for the large youth cohorts entering working age, and encouraging foreign investment until domestic savings and investment increase. The appropriate mix of policies in each country depends on their stage of the demographic transition.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309176573
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
This volume, the last in the series Population Dynamics of Sub-Saharan Africa, examines key demographic changes in Senegal over the past several decades. It analyzes the changes in fertility and their causes, with comparisons to other sub-Saharan countries. It also analyzes the causes and patterns of declines in mortality, focusing particularly on rural and urban differences.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309049423
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396
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Book Description
This overview includes chapters on child mortality, adult mortality, fertility, proximate determinants, marriage, internal migration, international migration, and the demographic impact of AIDS.
Author: Hans Groth
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319468898
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525
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Book Description
This book examines the promises as well as the challenges the demographic dividend brings to sub-Saharan Africa as fertility rates in the region fall and the labor force grows. It offers a detailed analysis of what conditions must be met in order for the region to take full economic advantage of ongoing population dynamics. As the book makes clear, the region will need to accelerate reforms to cope with its demographic transition, in particular the decline of fertility. The continent will need to foster human capital formation through renewed efforts in the areas of education, health and employment. This will entail a true vision and determination on the part of African leaders and their development partners. The book will help readers to gain solid knowledge of the demographic trends and provide insights into socioeconomic policies that eventually might lead sub-Saharan Africa into a successful future.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309266513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 47
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Book Description
Among the poorest and least developed regions in the world, sub-Saharan Africa has long faced a heavy burden of disease, with malaria, tuberculosis, and, more recently, HIV being among the most prominent contributors to that burden. Yet in most parts of Africa-and especially in those areas with the greatest health care needs-the data available to health planners to better understand and address these problems are extremely limited. The vast majority of Africans are born and will die without being recorded in any document or spearing in official statistics. With few exceptions, African countries have no civil registration systems in place and hence are unable to continuously generate vital statistics or to provide systematic information on patterns of cause of death, relying instead on periodic household-level surveys or intense and continuous monitoring of small demographic surveillance sites to provide a partial epidemiological and demographic profile of the population. In 1991 the Committee on Population of the National Academy of Sciences organized a workshop on the epidemiological transition in developing countries. The workshop brought together medical experts, epidemiologists, demographers, and other social scientists involved in research on the epidemiological transition in developing countries to discuss the nature of the ongoing transition, identify the most important contributors to the overall burden of disease, and discuss how such information could be used to assist policy makers in those countries to establish priorities with respect to the prevention and management of the main causes of ill health. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from a workshop convened in October 2011 that featured invited speakers on the topic of epidemiological transition in sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop was organized by a National Research Council panel of experts in various aspects of the study of epidemiological transition and of sub-Saharan data sources. The Continuing Epidemiological Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa serves as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop in October 2011.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309058961
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438
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Book Description
The last 35 years or so have witnessed a dramatic shift in the demography of many developing countries. Before 1960, there were substantial improvements in life expectancy, but fertility declines were very rare. Few people used modern contraceptives, and couples had large families. Since 1960, however, fertility rates have fallen in virtually every major geographic region of the world, for almost all political, social, and economic groups. What factors are responsible for the sharp decline in fertility? What role do child survival programs or family programs play in fertility declines? Casual observation suggests that a decline in infant and child mortality is the most important cause, but there is surprisingly little hard evidence for this conclusion. The papers in this volume explore the theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions of the fertility-mortality relationship. It includes several detailed case studies based on contemporary data from developing countries and on historical data from Europe and the United States.
Author: Committee on Population
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309518881
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 42
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Book Description
This report summarizes presentations and discussions at the Workshop on the Social Processes Underlying Fertility Change in Developing Countries, organized by the Committee on Population of the National Research Council (NRC) in Washington, D.C., January 29-30, 1998. Fourteen papers were presented at the workshop; they represented both theoretical and empirical perspectives and shed new light on the role that diffusion processes may play in fertility transition. These papers served as the basis for the discussion that is summarized in this report.
