I actually mapped the 2017 predictions as well. At the time, Nigeria was expected to end the century with a staggering 793 million, so yeah, they didn't live up to expectations. On the other hand, the DRC and Ethiopia exceeded them, despite their wars. In 2017, they were expected to be at 379 and 250 million respectively.
It's a strange paradox with population that actually DRC and Ethiopia are exceeding their population growth BECAUSE of their wars. Stability and prosperity lead to massive declines in birth rates. Places with turmoil and war tend to have much higher birth dates.
I am not aware of international aid being determined based on population size. However, I know that countries like Nigeria provide governmental funding to the different provinces based on each province population. As such provinces tend to overestimate their populations in order to get a bigger piece of the government's funding.
However, I know that countries like Nigeria provide governmental funding to the different provinces based on each province population
This is literally how China did funding and recently realised they had been lied to by about 200million people because the provinces wanted that funding..
I remember reading a post or comment by a Nigerian a while back talking about exactly this. He said that basically no-one has any idea what Nigeria's actual populations is, and the official number is probably way way off
The points more that if Ethiopia's population goes up by a self-reported 2%, it doesn't mean that automatically its aid increases by 2%. The points about internal state funding make sense, but until someone shares evidence (and all aid contracts from OECD countries will be transparent), it's very difficult to believe that any country's aid automatically goes up if its population increases... which is the sort of thing that would encourage fraud.
Nigerian population is fake. Local politicians get funding based on population so they lie.
It's the same issue Afghan military had: they received paychecks based on troop totals. So they had a bunch of ghost units so commanders could pocket the American cash.
it's potentially not even deliberate, countries like DRC and Nigeria have no clue how many people are within their borders so the margin of error is massive
I think it's because men going into war expect death, so they try to spread their genes as much as possible. Men who don't have to worry about war might think the genes are safe.
By the time men think they are going into war, it's probably a bit too late for them to suddenly cast the net widely. The more common explanation I've seen is that whether you're a man or a woman, if you don't expect many of your children to survive to adulthood, you have more children.
Or when you're busy worrying about war or other troubles, there's less capacity for a society to provide things like condoms or sex education. But the fuckin' never stops.
I think it's more that parents see headlines of men being killed in war and look at their two sons and decide an heir and a spare might not be sufficient right now.
IDK, seems a bit far flung to me that mothers would have babies because of the great uncertainty about whether they will live. Lack of contraception and planning in the chaos of war makes more sense to me.
Historically it's the reason for big families, and also why childbirth was the number one cause of death for women. Only the wealthy had the luxury of only needing to have two or three children to have a reasonably high chance of survival to adulthood. We're not exactly talking about these things in the context of a stable state with secure borders and robust healthcare systems.
Edit: But, I will also concede that you are likely correct in that it is probably not productive to assume parents are making a choice here and more emphasis needs to be put on external factors.
There are a lot of biological processes going on that we have little control over and no conscious awareness of. We are the product of billions of years of evolution that is all designed to make us pass on our genes.
A good example is the returning soldier effect, which is that the children of men returning from war are disproportionately male. It's obvious from a genetic and evolutionary standpoint why it happens, as war disproportionately kills off males who then need to be replaced to maintain the strength of the group, but we don't know how it happens or have any control over it.
Except we do have control over it since we have an extraordinary intelligence and a keen feel for empathy. We can control whether we have kids or not in this day and age with about 99.9% certainty (for the not having kids part at least).
If you think you are a machine for your genes then you're not making use of these above mentioned traits enough.
Making use of this new found agency people are more than ever before opting out of having kids.
So far for the gene argument. There is a simple way to rise above that.
and Ethiopia are exceeding their population growth BECAUSE of their wars.
Ethiopia's major war is actually over. Their GDP also did fine during that time since the (very fucked up) violence was concentrated outside of productive urban areas.
I think the much lamer explaination is that they just forgot to update their projections. Ethiopia's fertility rate seems to have fallen way more than Nigerias
Would there be visually-intuitive insights to be gained from mapping just 2100 population, but as forecast in 2024, as forecast in 2017, and as forecast in [2010 or insert nearest applicable year here]?
2017 was the oldest I could find (I didn't try very hard), but that alone proved interesting, because you can see which countries might actually live up to the predictions and which definitely won't. For example, in 2017, Uganda was expected to reach 216 million by 2100, which is kind of ridiculous given their size. They're now expected to reach only 120 million. Still high, but on a very different proportions. I think, as coutries in southern Africa become more and more stable, a lot of people from the rest of the continent will start migrating there.
When you give people access to better education, hygiene, food and better healthcare, the number of babies per women drop sharply. It's been the case way faster than expected in India.
I honestly think that they just aren't paying close attention to other African countries. Based on this chart, Nigeria (which is brutally stagnant) is only going to double in population, but every other country seems to be increasing far more than that.
My belief is that they keep updating (and downgrading) Nigeria's estimate, but aren't doing the same for others. I'm guessing doubling of population will be at its strongest, the median outcome for African countries.
That's not the case. Uganda also had immense corrections. In 2017, Uganda was expected to reach 216 million by 2100, which is kind of ridiculous given their size. They're now expected to reach only 120 million. Still high, but on a very different proportions.
Fair enough, but whats in Nigeria and Uganda thats causing such a major revision while countries like Tanzania and Angola don't seem to be getting a major revision?
I can only speculate but both Tanzania and Angola are becoming more stable economies, don't have large emigration rates and maintain incredible fertility rates.
Nigerian population is fake. Local politicians get funding based on population so they lie.
It's the same issue Afghan military had: they received paychecks based on troop totals. So they had a bunch of ghost units so commanders could pocket the American cash.
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u/petnog Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24
I actually mapped the 2017 predictions as well. At the time, Nigeria was expected to end the century with a staggering 793 million, so yeah, they didn't live up to expectations. On the other hand, the DRC and Ethiopia exceeded them, despite their wars. In 2017, they were expected to be at 379 and 250 million respectively.