Feb

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Is 35 million enough?

February 2, 2010 | 8 Comments | Sam Wylie

I read Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report today.  There are a few good graphs and tables.  The discussion of historical fertility rates in Australia and the collapse of birth rates from 3.50 children per woman in 1960 to 1.8 per woman in 1980 is interesting.   The description of the age distribution of immigration is interesting.  The comparison of Australian labour force participation rates with other countries is illuminating.  But overall, for such an important topic, there isn’t much that is new or profound in the report.

But at least the anticipation of this report, and its prediction of an Australian population number by 2050, has sparked some discussion about Australia’s population dynamics.  The fact that Australia’s population might grow to 35 million persons by 2050 is not in itself surprising.  The (geometric) average growth rate of population over the last 100 years has been 1.8%, so forty years of growth at 1.2% per annum would be nothing new for Australia.   What I find surprising is the stridently negative reaction from several quarters to a forecast of 35 million.

What is the big deal about 35 million?  That projection represents a considerable slowing of historical growth rates.  There isn’t any natural resource constraint on having a larger population.  At 35 million there would be 22 hectares of land per person in Australia, which seems like enough.  Saying that Australia doesn’t have enough water for 35 million people is as sensible as saying that we don’t have enough electricity.  Generating electricity and desalinating water are perfectly scalable industrial processes.  There is plenty of water of in the ocean, we just need to get the salt out it, which gets cheaper every year.  What else don’t we have enough of (apart from people)?

I agree with Prime Minister Rudd on this.  I favour a big Australia.  A grow rate of 1.2% is fine.  That would give us a population of 64 million by 2100.  More people living fulfilled lives is an end in itself.  More overall human happiness — isn’t that what we want?

A larger population also gives Australia a more secure place in the world.  Pax Americana will come to an end eventually and we will then need more political and military weight in the world than we have now.

A larger population will sustain a more robust, vital and distinctive Australian culture.  Globalisation is reducing cultural diversity at every level at a frightening rate.  The smaller our population the more quickly we will be assumed into a global monoculture.

How to protect and restore that environment in Australia in the face of a growing population is, I think, the critical issue.  However, many of the most pressing environmental issues in Australia are not closely related to population.  The wanton destruction of the Murray-Darling river systems has nothing to do with population growth rates.  Loss of native species, logging of old growth forests, protection of wild places and the spread of salinity are also essentially unrelated to population numbers.

CO2 emissions are clearly related to population numbers.  But population growth is driven by immigration, so global emissions would not change if we could get Australia’s per capita emission rate down to the global per capita rate.


Comments

8 Responses to “Is 35 million enough?”

  1. These numbers are rubbish at Catallaxy Files on February 2nd, 2010 7:59 am

    [...] at Core Economics Sam Wylie makes some very sensible comments. What is the big deal about 35 million? That projection represents a considerable slowing of [...]

  2. Sam's student on February 2nd, 2010 10:55 am

    Population growth is great but what about the social upheavals that come with immigration?

    You assume that “a larger population will sustain a more robust, vital and distinctive Australian culture” but wouldn’t you say that a country’s culture changes as its population grows?

  3. Bruce on February 2nd, 2010 1:11 pm

    Thanks for pointing out the absurd climate change objections some commentators make.  Some of them object that a person’s carbon footprint increases when they move from a poor country to a rich one, however their birth-rate also plummets, probably more than offsetting this.   And a strategy to keep carbon output from increasing by keeping people in poverty is simply immoral.

  4. Geoff Robinson on February 2nd, 2010 2:14 pm

    Odd that sections of the political right have taken up this ecological argument when usually they think climate chnage policy is a left-wing plot. Given birth rates and rising east and South Asian living standards will the immigration net have to cast more widely?

  5. DP on February 2nd, 2010 4:25 pm

    Bruce,

    Your point about carbon footprints being offset by declining birthrates versus increased consumption is wrong. As GDP increases, so does absolute levels of energy consumption. Under current technological and economic conditions that will mean a steep rise in the carbon footprint – especially as poorer nations completely takeover the role of manufacturers to the First World. (We offshore – so to speak -our carbon output.)

    The issue going forward is what part of that increased energy consumption is carbon-derived and what is not, with technological improvements to future energy technology?

  6. Chris Lloyd on February 5th, 2010 4:38 pm

    ‘More people living fulfilled lives is an end in itself.  More overall human happiness — isn’t that what we want?” This ranks as the most offensive and dangerous statement I have ever encountered. This is a nightmare vision – truly the stuff of science fiction. One imagines a trillion humans being herded like meat animals, kept content with opiates administered by robots. All progress according to Sam. Remember, so long as each human has total happiness > 0, we keep adding people to increase the total happiness. Just for starters, Sam will have to abolish progress measures such as GDP per head.
     
    “Pax Americana will come to an end eventually and we will then need more political and military weight in the world than we have now.” Echoes of Arthur Calwell’s populate or perish paranoia. Will having greater Melbourne extend 10km more in each direction somehow stop Indonesia invading us? Interesting also how the country that will take over from “Pax” Americana, China, is desperately reducing its population.
     
    “A larger population will sustain a more robust, vital and distinctive Australian culture. Globalisation is reducing cultural diversity at every level at a frightening rate.  The smaller our population the more quickly we will be assumed (sic) into a global monoculture.” Check today’s date..is it April 1? The bulk of our population increase is from immigration which must reduce our distinctiveness. It will make us more like America, England, Canada, France and other immmigration destinations. Distinctiveness comes from centuries of parochial isolation – not that I am advocating that.
     
    Norway and Switzerland manage to survive and thrive with a fraction of our population.  The onus of proof is on growth fetishists to justify the unsustainable.

  7. sam wylie on February 5th, 2010 4:59 pm

    Chris
    Just to be clear — are you saying that you disagree with parts of my post?
    Sam

  8. Martin C. Jones on February 11th, 2010 2:13 am

    Very droll, Sam. I’d say he does.
     
    As far as his* first two points go, I’d back him: maximising “total happiness” (even assuming we could measure and aggregate happiness) is just as silly as maximising total GDP without considering the per capita development. And advocating population growth in order to strengthen our political and military weight? Hmmm. China is a poor comparison, since we and they are at different ends of the population/income scales, but Norway and Switzerland (and other small countries with good institutions) have been thus far able to secure their place in the world.
     
    I’m also skeptical of your dismissal of environmental constraints on population growth, but since neither of us is posting any evidence we’ll just have to agree to disagree, I guess.
     
    *I am presuming this is a male Chris.