Population. The Milken Institute Review

Transcription

1 Population 42 The Milken Institute Review

2 Bust The Momentous, Curiously Unnoticed Decline in Muslim Fertility by n i c h o l a s e b e r sta d t Third Quarter

3 Postwar fears that Thomas Malthus would finally be proved right that the only thing stopping population growth would be starvation and mass die-off have given way to the more nuanced view that the population bomb would fizzle once living standards reached adequate levels. But this new conventional wisdom was always accompanied by a metaphoric asterisk: Muslim societies were widely believed to be stubbornly resistant to the great social and economic forces driving what is called the demographic transition. PWell, guess what? Muslim societies aren t so different, after all. While some Muslim countries came late to the party, the factors that have reduced fertility to sub-replacement levels in virtually all of Europe and East Asia now seem to be working their magic in those societies as well. That will be a relief for those who imagined a future in which the Ummah the Arabic word for the global Islamic community would grow ever larger in numbers, ever more discontented with its economic lot and ever more inclined to seek solace in religious fundamentalism. But, as we will see below, it is also true that no very rapid demographic change comes without costs. how many and where There are no precise numbers on the size of the world s Muslim population. In very poor Muslim-majority areas like Afghanistan, population figures are more educated guesswork than science. In any case, as Peter Blood of the Congressional Research Service notes, the official counters aren t necessarily seeking precision: UN agencies, hundreds of nongovernmental agencies and bilateral agencies use different figures to suit their purposes in designing assistance programs, he explains. Moreover, in the developed world, where accurate censuses are regularly compiled, these particular numbers typically aren t collected. Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. U.S. law expressly bars the Census Bureau from surveying religious affiliation; the same is true in Russia and much of the European Union. Nevertheless, it is possible to piece together solid estimates of the global Muslim population from a mix of survey materials. Two efforts stand out. The first, by Todd M. Johnson of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, estimated there were 1.42 billion Muslims worldwide in percent of the total world population. The second, from researchers underwritten by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, put the figure at 1.57 billion in 2009 (23 percent of the world total). Muslims in industrialized countries probably number around 40 million out of a total developed-country population of 1.2 billion. That implies Muslims represent 26 to 27 percent of the population of low- and middleincome countries, with most of them in a tropical and sub-tropical expanse that stretches from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania and Morocco to the Pacific archipelagos of Indonesia and the Philippines. The great preponderance of Muslims (70-80 percent) live in Muslim-majority countries, with another tenth of the Ummah in India. In all, just eight countries Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran and Turkey account for over 60 percent of the world s Muslim population. Note that only one of these eight is an Arab country. fertility collapse, Since the overwhelming majority of Muslims live in Muslim-majority countries, and since previous page, left: robert harding picture library ltd /alamy. previous page, right: gary moss. 44 The Milken Institute Review

4 TOTAL FERTILITY RATES IN THE MUSLIM WORLD, VS Afghanistan TOTAL FERTILITY RATE ( ) Lebanon Turkey Egypt Indonesia Chad Nigeria Iraq Pakistan Jordan Syria Bangladesh Qatar Saudi Arabia Maldives Iran Uzbekistan TOTAL FERTILITY RATE ( ) source: U.N. Secretariat, World Population Prospects those same countries are typically overwhelmingly Muslim (40 out of 49 are more than 90 percent Muslim), data at the national level provides a serviceable proxy for examining changes in fertility patterns. That makes the research a lot easier, since both the UN s Population Division and the U.S. Census provide estimates for total fertility rates (births per woman per lifetime) for more than 190 countries from 1970 to We can thus appraise the fertility-rate declines in all but one of the world s 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories. (The exception is Kosovo, which was part of Serbia for most of this period.) One way to illustrate the changes in fertility in these countries is to draw a 45-degree line from the intersection of the X and Y axes on a graph, then plot fertility levels from three decades ago on one axis against recent fertility levels on the other. A country whose fertility level remained unchanged would fall on the 45-degree line. Any country above the line will have increased fertility, while those below the line will have experienced fertility declines. Note, moreover, that the distance of the data points from the 45-degree line indicates the magnitude of a country s change in fertility. As the figure shows, fertility fell in all the Muslim-majority countries and territories. To be sure, the declines were modest in some extremely high-fertility countries in sub- Saharan Africa like Sierra Leone, Mali, Somalia and Niger. And in a few other countries, where a fertility transition had already brought rates down to about three children per woman by the late 1970s (as in Soviet Kazakhstan), subsequent declines were also limited. But in most of the rest, the drops in fertility have been extraordinary. The population-weighted average drop for all the Muslim-majority countries equaled 2.6 births per woman from 1975 to 1980 and 2005 to 2010 a markedly larger absolute decline than for either the world as a whole ( 1.3) or less-developed countries as a whole ( 2.2). In 18 of these Muslim-majority nations, total fertility rates fell by three births or more over the three decades; nine actually reduced fertility Third Quarter

5 population bust by four births per woman or more! In Oman, the total fertility rate collapsed from over eight to well under three an average decrease of nearly 1.9 births per woman per decade. The story is much the same when change is measured in percentages. The populationweighted average total fertility rate for the Muslim-majority areas as a whole fell by a ABSOLUTE DECLINE IN TOTAL FERTILITY RATES, TO , SELECTED COUNTRIES AND REGIONS Oman Sierra Leone Niger Kazakhstan Chad Mali Somalia Burkina Faso Afghanistan Nigeria Malaysia Gambia World Kyrgyzstan Guinea Azerbaijan Mauritania Sudan Iraq Comoros Developing Countries Tajikistan Lebanon Senegal Indonesia Turkey Brunei Albania Bahrain Muslim Average Egypt Turkmenistan Djibouti Palestine Pakistan Yemen Uzbekistan Western Sahara Morocco Kuwait Mayotte Tunisia Qatar UAE Jordan Syria Saudi Arabia Bangladesh Iran Libya Algeria Maldives source: U.N. Secretariat, World Population Prospects whopping 41 percent, compared to 34 percent for all less-developed countries. Fully 22 Muslim-majority countries and territories have seen fertility declines of 50 percent or more during those three decades, with 10 of them registering declines of 60 percent or more. Meanwhile, the total fertility rates in Iran and the Maldives dropped by more than 70 percent. Suspicious types may wonder whether I ve loaded the dice. Perhaps the declines in fertility are biased by the choice of the periods measured. They aren t. Consider the table on page 47, which shows the largest declines of fertility in two-decade periods for the entire postwar era. The four largest declines in absolute terms and six of the ten largest, each entailing reductions of over 4.5 births per woman occurred in Muslim-majority countries. The world record-breaker here, Oman, recorded a decline in its total fertility rate of 5.3 births per woman a drop of more than 2.6 births per woman per decade. muslim fertility in a western mirror Given the extraordinary declines sustained over the past generation, a substantial share of the Ummah now includes countries and territories with childbearing patterns comparable to those of affluent non-muslim countries. Granted, fertility rates vary widely among Muslim nations but so do levels among the various U.S. states. Indeed, Muslim countries interweave nicely in a graph of American state-by-state fertility patterns [see page 49]. For example, Algeria, Bangladesh and Morocco all have estimated fertility levels corresponding to Texas, while Indonesia s estimated rate is almost identical to that of Arkansas. Turkey and Azerbaijan, for their 46 The Milken Institute Review

6 part, are apparently on par with Louisiana, while Tunisia s total fertility rate looks like Illinois. Lebanon s fertility level is currently lower than New York State s. In Iran, the fertility level is roughly comparable to those of the New England states, the region in America least inclined toward large families. (No state in the contemporary United States, moreover, has a fertility level as low as Albania s.) All told, 21 Muslim-majority populations have fertility levels these days that would be unexceptional for U.S. states. As of 2009, these 21 had a total population of about 750 million very nearly half of the population of the Ummah. The numbers exclude tens of millions of Muslims in countries, including Russia and China, in which they are minorities. Thus, a majority of the world s Muslims probably reside in places with fertility levels that would look entirely unexceptional in an American mirror. Indeed, some Muslim sub-populations aren t even reproducing their numbers. Consider Turkey circa The country s overall total fertility rate then was That average, however, was inflated by high fertility in eastern Turkey (a largely Kurdish region), where a total fertility rate of 3.65 was recorded. In much of Turkey, total fertility rates of 1.9 or less prevailed. Istanbul s total fertility rate, for instance, was less than 1.9 which is to say, about the same as France s at the time. Or take the case of Iran, which has registered one of the most rapid and pronounced fertility declines ever documented. By 2000, the total fertility rate for the country as a whole had dropped to 2.0, below the notional replacement level of 2.1 (in low-mortality societies, a fertility rate below roughly 2.1 eventually leads to population decline, absent compensatory immigration). By the time of its 2006 census, fertility nationwide was down to 1.9. But some areas of Iran (like the largely THE TEN BIGGEST DECLINES IN TOTAL FERTILITY RATES Absolute economy time period decline Oman to Maldives to Kuwait to Iran to Singapore to Algeria to Mongolia to Libya to Vietnam to Mauritius to source: U.N. Secretariat, World Population Prospects THE TEN BIGGEST DECLINES IN TOTAL FERTILITY RATES, PERCENTAGE CHANGE percentage economy time period change China, Macao to % Maldives to Singapore to Iran to Kuwait to Oman to S. Korea to Mongolia to Vietnam to Mauritius to source: U.N. Secretariat, World Population Prospects Baluchi province of Sistan and the largely Kurdish province of West Azerbaijan) remained well above replacement. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country notably the cities of Tehran and Isfahan reported fertility levels lower than any state in the U.S. Indeed, with a total fertility rate of 1.4, Tehran s fertility level in 2006 would have been below the average for Portugal (1.54) and Switzerland (1.44), and only slightly higher than the rates for famously low-fertility Italy (1.26) and Germany (1.38). What s more, the 2006 figures for Iran Third Quarter

7 population bust and other Muslim-majority countries are probably already dated. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that, in 2011, the total fertility rate for Saudi Arabia was Libya and Egypt were put at 2.96 and 2.97, respectively figures no higher than those of American Latinos. Even Pakistan (projected at 3.17 for 2012) and the West Bank of Palestine (3.05) appear to be rapidly approaching the day their fertility levels will fall to American levels. what happened? A century of social science research has detailed the statistical associations between fertility decline and socioeconomic modernization. For the less-developed regions as a whole, fertility tends to fall in tandem with growth in urbanization, per capita income, female literacy and infant survival prospects. But the broad associations between fertility change and material measures of modernization are not the whole story here. A pathbreaking 1994 study by Lant Pritchett, an economist now at Harvard, made a persuasive case that the desired fertility level (as expressed, for example, by women of childbearing age in the Demographic and Health Surveys conducted worldwide in the postwar era) was the single best predictor for actual fertility levels in less-developed regions. Indeed, 90 percent of the statistical variance in their fertility levels can be explained solely by desired fertility. This finding can still touch off arguments among demographers and statisticians. In particular, it challenges the view that access to family planning programs is needed to cut fertility rates. Analysis of more-recent surveys seem to corroborate Pritchett s findings. Socioeconomic factors surely affect desired family sizes. But the critical determinant of actual fertility levels in Muslim and non-muslim societies alike would appear to be more related to cultural expectations than directly to tangible economic and social factors. We can get a sense of fertility dynamics from multivariate regression analysis that uses statistical methods to disentangle the relative importance of various factors driving fertility. Four variables per capita income, literacy rates, the prevalence of modern contraceptive use and desired fertility explain 90 percent of the differences in fertility among 41 developing countries. But, strikingly, leaving out literacy rates and contraceptive use hardly makes a difference. Next, add another variable to the equation, a simple dummy variable to distinguish between majority-muslim and non-muslim countries. Startlingly, the dummy variable has a negative impact that is, other things being equal, Muslims are less inclined to bear children than their non-muslim counterparts. Indeed, with the dummy variable in the equation, variations in income no longer seem to explain any fertility differences. All told, just two variables (the Muslim/non-Muslim dummy variable and desired fertility rate) appear to explain almost all the differences in fertility rates among developing countries. This result, of course, seemingly generates more questions than it answers. Economists generally associate the wish to have fewer children with the cost; people want fewer when housing gets more expensive, schooling becomes obligatory and women can find financially rewarding alternatives to the work of child-raising. But here, income growth does not seem to have a direct impact on fertility; nor does making contraception more widely available. And truly astonishingly, Muslim women in developing countries, who have been stereotyped as chained to the bed and the stove, are less apt to have children 48 The Milken Institute Review

8 than non-muslims in similar socioeconomic environments. To get to the bottom of this mystery, researchers are going to have to look more closely at the subtle factors driving desired family size and how those factors play out differently for Muslims than for non- Muslims. how much does it matter? There is much we don t know about how the Muslim population implosion will affect matters economic, political and cultural. But there is also much we do know: Downward revision of population growth. In its 2000 revisions of World Population Prospects, the UN s medium variant projections envisioned a population for Yemen of 102 million people in the year A decade later, the figure was revised down to 62 million and the Census Bureau s latest 2050 projection for Yemen is under 46 million. What applies to Yemen goes for many other Muslim counties, too. Declines in working-age (15-64) population. Today, Muslim-majority countries and territories are coping with the Herculean challenge of generating employment for burgeoning work forces. Tomorrow, they will have to cope with manpower declines. For example, if current Census Bureau projections prove accurate, the size of Lebanon s age 15-to-64 cohort will peak in the year 2023 and shrink more or less indefinitely thereafter. Another 13 Muslim-majority countries among them, Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco and Turkey will also see their working-age populations begin to decline before A wave of youthquakes. With rapidly declining fertility rates, the arithmetic of population composition makes for inescapable youthquakes temporary but sometimes very substantial increases in young people as a fraction of total population. Depending on TOTAL FERTILITY RATES for U.S. states and selected muslim-majority countries, circa Albania Vermont Delaware Rhode Island New Hampshire Iran Maine Massachusetts UAE Lebanon Michigan New York Connecticut West Virginia Pennsylvania Oregon Ohio Wisconsin Washington Tunisia Illinois Maryland Virginia Alabama Missouri Montana Kentucky Colorado New Jersey Tennessee Brunei Florida Indiana North Dakota U.S. DC South Carolina North Carolina Iowa Minnesota Turkey Louisiana Indonesia Arkansas California Oklahoma Georgia New Mexico Kansas Wyoming Mississippi Hawaii Nebraska Alaska Kuwait Bangladesh Texas Qatar South Dakota Nevada Arizona Idaho Kazakhstan Utah Malaysia source: U.N. Secretariat, World Population Prospects Third Quarter

9 the social, economic and political context, such youthquakes can facilitate rapid economic development or exacerbate social and political strains. Tunisia passed through such a youthquake some time ago, and Iran is experiencing the tail end of one today; Yemen and Palestine, among other Muslim-majority societies, have yet to deal with theirs. Lots of elderly, little to support them. The more rapidly a country s fertility drops, the greater the potential for social and economic dislocation as earlier generations age. As a consequence of extremely rapid fertility decline and even descent into sub-replacement fertility more than a dozen Muslimmajority countries will have higher fractions of their populations over the age of 65 by the year 2040 than the United States has today. gary moss 50 The Milken Institute Review

10 Even with optimistic assumptions about economic growth, it is hard today to envision just where these countries will get the resources to meet the needs of their graying populations. * * * There is much to feel good about in this astonishing demographic tableau. Start with the fact that the extraordinary transformation is testament to the triumph of human agency in the Muslim world. Islamo-pessimists would never have guessed that such a change could take place in a Muslim cultural environment and yet it has, and in many separate settings. Indeed, the main difference between the Western experience of fertility decline and today s Muslim experience seems to be that childbearing patterns in the latter are typically changing much more rapidly. Consider, too, that while politics in so many Muslim-majority states including almost all of the Middle East was essentially frozen beneath autocratic regimes for decades, subject Muslim populations still managed to take charge of their lives in the most personal and arguably meaningful of realms: the family. As noted above, the rapid decline in fertility will eventually burden the affected countries with a growing proportion of dependent elderly. But in the near term, there could be positive ramifications from this demographic revolution. Economists talk of a demographic dividend that accrues when a society moves from a high birth rate to a low one: the portion of the population that is of working age increases, thereby boosting society s potential for savings, investment and growth. Demographic dividends do not always end up getting cashed, of course; bad governance and weak civil institutions can sabotage even an economy with the most promising prospects. But the flexibility shown by Muslim cultures in reducing fertility rates to suit contemporary needs (not to mention the shock of the Arab Spring) should serve as a warning to those who still assume that the Ummah is stuck in a cul-de-sac. The Muslim world has the capacity to surprise and not all the surprises need be unhappy ones. m Third Quarter