Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2.2 Births
Thankfully, for every 3 million stillbirths worldwide, 133 million babies are born alive and
123 million of those will live to see their fifth birthday. Most people in the world now live in
a country where fewer babies are born than would be required to maintain the population
at its current size were there no migration. In the terminology used by demographers,
fertility rates are now below 'replacement level' in most of the world. Thankfully (again),
immigration from abroad can maintain the populations of territories where less than one
baby is born per adult life. Figure 5.4 shows where most babies are born alive each year and
Text Box 5.3 gives more detail of the variations between places.
Text Box 5.3: Births
A total of 133,121,000 babies were born in the year 2000. In territories with the fewest
births per person, more people are dying than are being born. As with all population
statistics, even for this vital one, figures are rough estimates.
More children are born each year in Africa than are born in the Americas, all of
Europe and Japan put together. Worldwide, more than a third of a million new people
will be born on your birthday this year.
The birth of a baby is an occasion for weaving hopeful dreams about the future
(Aung San Suu Kyi, 1997)
Figure 5.4
This map shows the proportion of the world's total births for each territory (Worldmapper
Map 3)
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