Annual Reports
Letter From PRB President Bill Butz
(January 2008)Two recent experiences have brought home to me the enormous width, and yet the subtleties, of the demographic divide—the historically unprecedented gulf that separates the pace of population growth of developing countries from that of industrialized countries.
In November in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, we co-hosted a conference in which participants from nearly a dozen nations shared approaches to integrated development for East Africa, linking population, health, and environment programs. High fertility, disease, and environmental problems remain difficult challenges in these countries. Three weeks later in Vienna, I attended a conference of social scientists addressing whether policies can increase fertility in Europe. Fiscal difficulties of old-age support, the economic challenges of shrinking labor forces, and political and cultural implications of aging populations have called governments to action, just in the last two years.
The demographic challenges in both worlds are real and serious. These two conferences reminded me of three key realities.
In the complexities of people's behavior lie both the causes and the solutions for the demographic divide. In East Africa, high fertility interacts with crowded living and increased demand for natural resources to spread disease and harm the environment. Consequently, interventions incorporating population, health, and the environment can be more cost-effective than narrow sectoral approaches. And in Europe, women's and men's work behavior, along with their housing options and choices, are tied up with their fertility. Consequently, family-friendly work environments along with housing subsidization for larger families might be expected to induce higher fertility.
Each side of the divide has its own divides. The fertility rate in Addis Ababa, for example, is well below replacement level, while nationwide, Ethiopian women average almost five and a half children each. In Europe, Hungary has among the most "family friendly" and pronatalist policies, but nevertheless an exceedingly low fertility rate. In contrast, Ireland has no policies that particularly favor childrearing, yet has a fertility rate among Europe's highest. And across Europe, more than 20 countries are experiencing something of an uptick in fertility in the last five years. Such variation on either side of the divide complicates the search for simple remedies.
The policies of choice are clearer in the poor countries than in rich ones. The field experience and research reported in Addis added to other substantial evidence that access to family planning, girls' schooling, gender-inclusive programs, and integrated development approaches can effectively address population, health, and environment challenges. Policymakers in developing countries can therefore proceed with confidence to scale up programs and policies that work. In Vienna, on the other hand, reports of policies that appear to increase fertility rates conflicted with reports from other countries that are maintaining reasonably high fertility without such policies, and still other countries where such policies have no apparent effect. Hence, neither social science theory nor the available data yet provide clear policy guidance for increasing fertility in the industrialized countries.
At PRB we connect data, science, and policy to these on-the-ground realities—from documenting the well-being of America’s immigrant children to disseminating information worldwide on best health "buys" to combat more than 100 diseases; from researching the U.S. science and engineering workforce to educating the global media about reproductive health and family planning. Major innovations in our web and communication capabilities are extending our global reach, enabling decisionmakers to obtain accurate and up-to-date information when they need it and in appropriate language and formats.
You—our sponsors, donors, members, partners, and friends—make it possible for PRB to inform these global dialogues, whether in Addis, Vienna, or around the states and the world. Together, as this annual report shows, we are doing important work.
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