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446 CHAPTER 14 Population and Urbanization

food from nations that have a surplus to those that have a shortage, and second, where
needed, to teach more efficient farming techniques.
These pictures of starving Africans leave the impression that Africa is overpopulated.
Why else would all those people be starving? The truth, however, is far different. Africa
has 23 percent of Earth’s land, but only 15 percent of Earth’s population (Haub and
Kent 2008; Haub and Kaneda 2012). Africa even has vast areas of fertile land that have
not yet been farmed. The reason for famines in Africa, then, cannot be too many people
living on too little land.

Population Growth
Explain why the Least
14.2
Industrialized Nations have so
Even if starvation is the result of a maldistribution of food rather than overpopulation,
many children, consequences of
the Least Industrialized Nations are still growing much faster than the Most Industrial-
rapid population growth, population
ized Nations. Without immigration, it would take several hundred years for the average
pyramids, the three demographic
Most Industrialized Nation to double its population, but just fifty years for the average
variables, and problems in
Least Industrialized Nation to do so (Haub and Kaneda 2012). Figure 14.5 puts the
forecasting population growth.
matter in stark perspective.
Why the Least Industrialized Nations
Have So Many Children
Why do people in the countries that can least afford it have so many children? Let’s go
Read on MySocLab
Document: Sixteen Impacts of back to the chapter’s opening vignette and try to figure out why Celia was so happy
Population Growth about having her thirteenth child. It will help if we apply the symbolic interactionist per-
spective. We must take the role of the other so that we can understand the world of Celia
and Angel as they see it. As our culture does for us, their culture provides a perspective on
life that guides their choices. Celia and Angel’s culture tells them that twelve children are
not enough, that they ought to have a thirteenth—as well as a fourteenth and fifteenth.
How can this be? Let’s consider three reasons why bearing many children is important to
Celia and Angel—and to millions upon millions of poor people around the world.
First is the status of parenthood. In the Least Industrialized Nations, motherhood
is the most prized status a woman can achieve. The more children a woman bears, the
more she is thought to have achieved the purpose for which she was
FIGURE 14.5 World Population born. Similarly, a man proves his manhood by fathering children.
The more children he fathers, especially sons, the better: Through
Growth, 1750–2150 them, his name lives on.
12 Second, the community supports this view. Celia and those like her
live in Gemeinschaft communities, where people share similar views
of life. To them, children are a sign of God’s blessing. By producing
10 children, people reflect the values of their community, achieve status,
and are assured that they are blessed by God. It is the barren woman,
Population in billions 8 Industrialized Nations not the woman with a dozen children, who is to be pitied.
You can see how these factors provide strong motivations for
bearing many children. There is also another powerful incentive:
6
For poor people in the Least Industrialized Nations, children are
economic assets. Look at Figure 14.6. Like Celia’s and Angel’s eldest
4
age. But even more important: Children are their equivalent of our
Social Security. In the Least Industrialized Nations, the govern-
2 The Least son, children begin contributing to the family income at a young
The Most Industrialized Nations ment does not provide social security or medical and unemployment
insurance. This motivates people to bear more children, because
0
1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 2100 2150 when parents become too old to work, or when no work is to be
Year found, their children take care of them. The more children they
Sources: “The World of the Child 6 Billion” 2000; Haub and Kaneda have, the broader their base of support and the more secure their
2012. future.