Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Field Note
“My mind was on wine. I was in Bordeaux, France, walking
down the street to the Bordeaux Wines Museum (Musée
des Vins de Bordeaux) with a friend from the city. Hav-
ing just fl own from Dakar, Senegal, after spending several
weeks in Subsaharan Africa, I found my current surround-
ings strikingly different. Observing the buildings and the
people around me, I noticed that after having been among
so many young children in Subsaharan Africa, the majority
of the inhabitants I encountered in Bordeaux were adults. I
turned to my friend and asked, 'Where are all the children?'
He looked around, pointed, and replied, 'There goes one
now!' In Bordeaux, in Paris, in all of France and the rest of
Europe, there are fewer children and populations are aging
(Fig. 2.9).”
Figure 2.9
Bordeaux, France.
© H. J. de Blij.
population in 1650. Just 170 years later, in 1820 (when
Malthus was still writing), the population had doubled
again, to 1 billion (Fig. 2.10). And barely more than a cen-
tury after this, in 1930, it reached 2 billion. The doubling
time was down to 100 years and dropping fast; the
popu-
lation explosion
was in full gear. Only 45 years elapsed
during the next doubling, to 4 billion (1975). During the
mid-1980s, when the rate declined to 1.8 percent, the
doubling slowed to 39 years. Today, world population is
doubling in 54 years, and the continuing slowdown in the
estimated doubling rate is one of the bright spots in the
problematic demographic picture.
For demographers and population geographers who
study global population growth today, the concept of dou-
bling time is losing much of its punch. With populations
falling in many places, fears of global population doubling
quickly are defi nitely subsiding. Many indicators, such as
the slowing of the doubling time, suggest that the worst
may be over, that the explosive population growth of the
twentieth century will be followed by a marked and accel-
erating slowdown during the twenty-fi rst century. The
global growth rate is now down to 1.4 percent, perhaps
slightly lower. But today the world's population is 7 bil-
lion, yielding an increase in world population that still
exceeds 80 million annually at this growth rate.
As a result of falling TFRs in both the developing
and developed world, demographers no longer caution
about doubling time. With women having fewer chil-
dren, many demographers are predicting the world may
reach
zero population growth
in the next 50 years. In
