Population explosion and declining fertility rates are complete opposites, but our planet is experiencing both.

Like water seeking its own level, people migrate, and their movement sometimes generates friction that strains the international order.

With the inexorable deepening of disparities, the goal of creating an egalitarian society is becoming increasingly harder to attain.

Something must be worked out to reverse this tide.

RISKY JOURNEYS

Last autumn, a ship operated by an international NGO spent three weeks adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. The roughly 230 immigrants and refugees on board had been shipwrecked off Libya in northern Africa.

The NGO initially requested permission to call at an Italian port, but the request was denied by Italy’s right-wing administration. Ultimately, France allowed the survivors to land. But it also retracted its earlier policy of taking in 3,500 immigrants that Italy had accepted.

There is no end to the migration of people from Africa and the Middle East to Europe, and from Latin America to the United States.

Theirs is a journey with zero guarantee of personal safety. Since 2014, an estimated 29,000 people died on their way from Africa to Europe through the Mediterranean and other routes, according to the International Organization for Migration.

This is occurring against a background of global demographic changes.

The world’s population reached 8 billion last year, with Africans and Asians accounting for 90 percent of the 1-billion increase over 12 years.

In sub-Sahara Africa, especially, the population of young people has been growing rapidly due to a steady decline in mortality rates and unchanged trend of a high fertility rate to secure a labor force.

Normally, a bigger labor force spells higher productivity and enhanced consumer purchasing power, which in turn should lead to economic growth. But for that to be the case, certain conditions must be met, such as increased food production and the availability of education and employment opportunities.

There are many nations where these conditions are not met because of extreme weather and chaos resulting from armed conflict.

Those nations rely on exports of natural resources, which holds back industrial development. They are also vulnerable to sudden changes in international circumstances, rendering them more susceptible than advanced nations to the impact of higher grain and energy prices resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the meantime, low fertility rates and steady aging of the population continue to plague advanced nations. The situation effectively begs hordes of out-of-work people in Africa and the Middle East to cross the Mediterranean in search of work in Europe where labor shortages are chronic.

But cultural differences, coupled with fears in Europe of job losses to immigrants, generate friction, which contributes to the popularity of right-wing forces that embrace xenophobic policies.

In addition to Italy, Sweden also saw the surge of an anti-immigration political party last year. And in Europe as well as the United States, conspiracy theorists are spreading the narrative that their communities will be overrun by immigrants.

ISSUES FOR NEWLY EMERGING NATIONS

Natalia Kanem, the executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, had the following to say on the growing strains across the globe: “We cannot rely on one-size-fits-all solutions in a world in which the median age is 41 in Europe compared to 17 in sub-Saharan Africa.” And she pointed out the real challenge lies in “securing a world in which progress can be enjoyed equally and sustainably.”

The problem of an aging society coupled with low fertility rates is not unique to Japan and advanced nations of Europe.

This year, China will be replaced by India as the world’s most populous nation. China maintained a single-child policy for nearly 40 years but then scrapped it. But that has not stopped the nation’s slumping birth rate from sliding further.

According to one estimate, China’s population decreased last year. In 2021, the nation became an “aging society” where people aged 65 and older accounted for more than 14 percent of the population.

Economist Cai Fang noted that sizable disparities exist among China’s elderly population, whose income level is low. And yet, the generation that should be supporting the nation is shrinking before an adequate social security system has been established, and per capita GDP is still about one-fifth of the U.S. level. The likelihood of growing old before becoming prosperous is becoming increasingly real.

The situation raises questions about the legitimacy of the Xi Jinping administration that upholds the principle of “common prosperity” through the pursuit of development while rectifying disparities.

A similar phenomenon is occurring in Southeast Asia, too.

Having developed into the “factory of the world” with its cheap labor, the region has outgrown its “developing” status to collectively become “mid-income nations.” But even though the working age population has stopped growing, these nations have not yet managed to advance to high income status.

Will they be able to break free of this “mid-income nation trap?” In the past, popular discontent erupted when growth under dictatorship in the name of economic development petered out. There is always the concern that history will repeat itself.

HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS

The growth of the global population owes to higher agricultural productivity, improved public sanitation and medical advances. As such, it is an achievement to be celebrated.

But a message issued last year by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was filled with a sense of crisis.

“Unless we bridge the yawning chasm between the global haves and have-nots, we are setting ourselves up for an 8-billion-strong world filled with tensions and mistrust, crisis and conflict,” he warned.

That chasm was symbolized by a global scramble to secure COVID-19 vaccines. Developing nations deepened their mistrust of developed nations that bought up and hoarded the vaccines. And the conflict between the haves and have-nots remains deep-rooted over climate change.

In the meantime, tensions have grown between Europe and the United States on one side and China and Russia on the other. Both sides are scrambling to woo developing nations.

The world has forgotten how to work together in harmony. Divisiveness rules now. But international collaboration is indispensable if social instability and economic disparity, created by distorted demographic changes, are to be resolved.

Advanced nations that have already experienced graying societies and chronically low birthrates can share their know-how with newly emerging nations while supporting economic growth in developing nations so that their young people won’t have to leave home. Japan can take the lead in contributing to various undertakings.

The population of the world will continue growing for the next 60 years. We just cannot avert our eyes from the existing disparities.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 4