More Sad Tales from Niger

Just when you think it can't be any worse for what is arguably the country with the world's worst demographics--Niger--it seems that is has gotten worse. The New York Times reports that a large group of migrants trying to flee the country to reach Algeria (perhaps to find work there, perhaps to find passage to Europe from there) were abandoned in the desert where they died.

Two trucks carrying the migrants — men, women and children — broke down in the northern desert while trying to reach neighboring Algeria, said Almoustapha Alhacen, speaking by telephone from Arlit, where they started their journey on Sept. 26. Responders, himself included, found groups of corpses — 15 here, 11 there — scattered in a wide radius around a well that the victims had tried to reach. Five other victims were discovered earlier, for a total of 92 dead. 

At least 52 of the victims were children, said Mr. Alhacen, who heads a nongovernmental organization called Aghirin Man in Arlit, 120 miles south of the border. 

Out of 113 who plunged into the desert in late September, bypassing the main road and its checkpoints, 21 survived, Mr. Alhacen said. Two, both smugglers, made it back to Arlit and are in jail, he said; 19 reached the Algerian city of Tamanrasset and were sent back. “They were doing this illegally, so they didn’t take the road,” Mr. Maouli said.

It is hard to comprehend the desperation that people feel to make a journey like this, which is almost the stuff of science fiction based on stories of what happens when population overruns resources and people are forced to seek refuge somewhere else.

Who First Said “Demography is Destiny”?

The term “demography is destiny” is often-repeated by me and many others, especially writers for The Economist, as I have noted before. It has become common-place to ascribe the term to the French sociologist and father of positivism Auguste Comte, who lived from 1798 to 1857. A Google search turned up a lot of people copying each other with the name “Augustus” instead of Auguste, and a few claiming that he was an 18th century Frenchman. Well, OK, he was born in the 18th century, but he was scarcely three as the 19th century rolled around. Another advantage of Google is that they have copied old books and have them online so that you can do word or phrase searches. I went through every Comte volume that exists online and could not find a reference to “demography is destiny.” To be sure, Comte was concerned about destinies, but not about demographic processes. Indeed, if we agree that Achille Guillard invented the term “demographie” in 1855, that was only two years before Comte died, so he is unlikely to have heard the term, much less to have used it. I have a copy of Guillard’s book and I don’t see any reference by him to “demography is destiny.” His grandson Jacques Bertillon would be a likely candidate to have coined the phrase, but I can’t find any reference to it in his writings either.

So, to my mind, the phrase is not properly attributable to Auguste Comte, but I admit that I don’t have a good substitute. The origin seems to be a mystery and, if so, let’s leave it at that and not pretend that it comes from one of the French Enlightenment thinkers. Of course, if someone can prove me wrong on this, I’ll be happy to know the truth.

UPDATE: THE ANSWER IS FOUND BOTH IN MY BLOG POST ON 13 NOVEMBER 2013 AND IN THE LINK IN THE COMMENT BELOW.

Demographic Tales From Korea

China comes to the top of almost anyone's list when thinking about East Asian countries who have benefitted economically by improving life expectancy, rapidly cutting back on childbearing, and educating that smaller generation of children. However, that is also the story of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. This week's Economist features the latter country in a comparison piece with North Korea. In the pages devoted to demography, the focus is largely on South Korea, with occasional references to North Korea. The story of South Korea has all of the plot lines of a "good" demographic tale: A country with a long history of education as a route to prestigious jobs undergoes a very rapid transition from a predominantly rural country with high mortality and high fertility to a predominantly urban country with low mortality and not just low, but very low (TFR = 1.3) fertility. The older population is increasing as a fraction of the population, and early retirement is creating economic problems in a society without a good safety net for the elderly beyond the (increasingly small) family. In the meantime, the younger generation is focused on getting its few children per family into the very best schools. Indeed, the Economist suggests that the intensity of this competition is one factor explaining the very low fertility. 

This competitive spirit may be the chief reason why fertility is so low. South Koreans feel they have to invest huge amounts of time and money to help their child succeed. The cost of education in particular is forbidding. The fundamental problem of child-rearing in South Korea is too few children, too much rearing.

The other factor is another well-known plot line--women are educated and are in the labor force in high proportions, but huge gaps in gender inequality mean that women are expected to all of the housework and childcare. That is an almost universal recipe for low fertility. If men want to live in a society with more children per woman they are going to have to shake off thousands of years of history and step up and share the housework and childrearing. 

Driving and Reproductive Health--Really?

The news has been alive (fortunately!) with the story from Saudi Arabia of a well-organized campaign by women there to show themselves driving, in defiance of the government, in order to try to change Saudi policy that effectively prohibits women from driving. Technically, there is no law against women driving, but the government refuses to issue licenses to women. The Washington Post has a list of other countries where the status of women is, believe it or not, even lower than in Saudi Arabia:

The World Economic Forum, which publishes the preeminent ranking on gender gap issues, ranked Saudi Arabia 10th from the bottom in its 2013 report -- ahead of Mali, Morocco, Iran, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen. Women’s rights abuses are by no means limited to North Africa, West Africa or the Middle East, though that’s where we tend to hear such stories most frequently.

Opponents of the right of women to drive would seem largely to be insecure men, but rather than admitting that as the motivation, The Economist has discovered that at least one prominent Saudi has invoked the issue of reproduction into the discussion:

Last month Sheikh Salah al-Luhaydan, a well-known cleric who also practises psychology, claimed on a popular Saudi website that it has been scientifically proved that driving “affects the ovaries” and leads to clinical disorders in the children of women who are foolish enough to drive.

I'm guessing that the Sheikh reads the same science journals as does Michelle Bachman.

On the Value of Vaccinations

It has become sadly common among some parents in richer countries with very low death rates among children to be worried about vaccination programs, thinking maybe the side effects, if any, will be worse than the disease. This attitude ignores the reality that death rates are low because of the success of vaccination programs against an increasingly wide range of communicable diseases (possibly even HIV/AIDS). The evidence of how important vaccinations are has shown up in Syria, as reported in the New York Times:

The officials said that the discovery a few weeks ago of a cluster of paralyzed young children in Deir al-Zour, a heavily contested city in eastern Syria, had prompted their alarm, and that tests conducted by both the government and rebel sides strongly suggested that the children had been afflicted with polio.

The possibility of a polio epidemic in Syria, where the once-vaunted public health system has collapsed after 31 months of political upheaval and war, came as the United Nations is increasingly struggling with the problem of how to deliver basic emergency aid to millions of deprived civilians there.

The World Health Organization has spent 25 years trying to eradicate polio. In recent years, the disease’s presence had narrowed to just three countries — Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan — from more than 125 when the campaign began in 1988. The virus is highly infectious and mainly affects children younger than 5. Within hours, it can cause irreversible paralysis or even death if breathing muscles are immobilized. The only effective treatment is prevention, the World Health Organization says on its Web site, through multiple doses of a vaccine. 

While the source of the Syrian polio strain remained unclear, public health experts said the jihadists who had entered Syria to fight the government of President Bashar al-Assad may have been carriers. Dr. Aylward said there were some indications that the strain had originated in Pakistan. He cited the recent discovery of the Pakistani strain in sewage in Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

On a much happier related to vaccinations is the story from Ghana, which has become a role model in terms of immunization programs. Of course, Syria was doing well, too, before it imploded. Fortunately, though, Ghana is a stable democracy and shows no sign of the kinds of political stability that also afflicts some of its neighbors and which drives a stake through the heart of health programs.