Third in a series in which we look at how Americans rank compared to other nations on various measures. Take a look at Parts 1 and 2 for background.
Today we’ll start with something that is on the mind of developed nations, and a big worry, especially for some in the right-wing of politics:
POPULATION GROWTH
The countries with the highest rates of population growth tend to be in Africa where birth rates are higher. Poorer countries traditionally have higher birth rates and higher population growth rates as well. In general, a high population growth rate tends to correlate with high levels of misery. In Europe, by contrast, the birth rate is below 2.1 children per adult woman, the rate believed to allow a country to keep its population steady.
Some European countries, such as Latvia, have negative growth rates. Not only are birth rates low in Latvia, but residents often emigrate to other European countries which reduces the population even further.
It may not seem to make sense that more people would be born in poorer countries, but people tend to have more children when the survival of their children seems far from guaranteed. When a country is developed and its people are generally well off, people tend to have fewer children and devote more resources to each child.
An example of this dynamic can be seen in the country of Gabon where the mortality rate of children under 5 is 39.7 per 1,000 births. This is a significantly higher child mortality rate than in developed nations. So not surprisingly, fertility rates are also higher. The population of Gabon is also relatively young. A young population means a higher share of the residents are of child-bearing age. Put all this together and Gabon has a population that is growing faster than the worldwide average.
MISERY BREEDS CHILDREN
An example of misery and insecurity breeding a high population growth rate is Syria. Syria has many many problems, including an ongoing civil war. And yet people keep on having children there, more children than average around the world. Perhaps surprisingly the death rate for children under the age of 5 is 22.3 per 1,000 births, which not that bad compared quite a number of other countries. So, with a high birth rate and a relatively low child death rate, the population of Syria keeps growing and growing rapidly.
Another country on the hit parade of sheer misery is Somalia. The World Bank indicates that about 70% of Somalians live in poverty and only 7% of women use contraception. So of course Somalia’s population is growing rapidly (2.49% annually). Nigeria, Mozambique, and the Republic of Congo also simultaneously rank highly on the misery and poverty index and the population growth rate index.
Another factor that impacts fertility rates and by extension population growth rates is whether or not women have access to and use contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Around the world, about 78 percent of women are satisfied with their ability to use contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But some countries have far less access. For example, only 28% of women use modern contraceptive methods in Papua New Guinea. Unsurprisingly, the nation has a higher than average population growth rate.
BUT WHAT ABOUT AMERICANS?
Now that I’ve convinced you that poverty, misery, and lack of modern contraception encourage fertility – where do you Americans stand?
Welllll…. Americans ain’t fertile. Yup, American fertility has hit record lows. The super-spawners in South Sudan have a fertility rate upwards of 4%. Americans clock in at 0.67%.
That’s better than a population decline, but…it ain’t exactly great.
Countries like America, highly developed and not poor or comparatively miserable (or young) often get their population growth from immigration. They essentially import young, child-bearing people. Population-wise this is a good deal for both the immigrants and the country getting immigrated to. The immigrants get less misery and poverty and the country gets more population and young people to drive the economy.
Immigration has slowed though, so nations with lower fertility rates aren’t getting the boost they were back in 2016. You would not know this looking at news coverage in Europe and America, but there you go.
So what does it mean that Americans aren’t that great at having kids?
Not to mention that some Americans are trying hard to be not that great at allowing immigration of young fertile people into the country?
Well, presumably it means that Americans will eventually comprise a shrinking portion of the global population. That reality isn’t limited to America, though. The UN estimates that 63 countries have already passed their peak population numbers. The UN, by the way, tends to be fairly accurate in its estimates, if a bit over-optimistic in some ways.
That estimate is in contrast to the stunning world population growth earlier. 7 billion people on the globe in 2011. Another billion more now. A 7-fold increase in world population in two hundred years. To put it another way, if you’re a Gen X-er, you’ve seen the world population double in your lifetime. In fact, if you’re Gen X, you’ve been living through what might well be the fastest rate of world population growth in all of human history.
But now the tables have turned. We are now living through an era of extreme aging. In 10 years, there will probably be more people in the world over the age of 80 than under the age of 1. Fortunately for Americans, though, the situation is not as extreme in the U.S. as in some other areas. Americans should be able to eke out some increases in population for the next quarter century – if all goes well. America is not as densely populated as many other countries (such as Mexico) and so has room to handle population growth well into the future.
If all goes as expected, the world population will start to decline by the end of this century. The actual world population growth rate has been declining since the 1960s. In 1962, the world population grew at a healthy 2.1% clip. In 2023, the world population grew at a rate of less than 1%. Furthermore, the number of worldwide deaths is estimated to increase substantially in the future (due partly to the high number of very old people in the world population).
VERDICT: Americans are NOT great at increasing their population or having babies. However, Americans are not as terrible at these things as some of the other developed countries of the world.
OKAY, AMERICANS ARE NOT THE YOUNGEST, MOST FERTILE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, BUT AMERICANS ARE STILL PRETTY GREAT ATHLETES, RIGHT?
Oh yeah. Americans have won so many gold medals at the Olympics, it’s embarrassing. For example, Russia has over almost 400 gold medals to its credit over the course of modern Olympic history. That’s impressive.
Unless you’re an American!
Americans have more than a thousand gold medals. Americans have also won around 800 silver medals. More than 2,000 total medals in modern Olympic history. 2,000. Next competitor (Russia) has less than a thousand. Come on!
China, with its huge population – fuggedahboutit. Barely 300 gold medals.
Not to mention, the most successful Olympic athlete of all time is an American. Michael Phelps. 28 medals. C’mon man!
The most successful female Olympic athlete of all time is Larisa Latynina, a Soviet gymnast. She won 18 medals total. But c’mon again. Simone Biles has got to be the greatest female gymnast of all time, Olympic medals or not. Go Simone! Yay Americans.
Admittedly, one of the reasons Americans do so well at the Olympics is that there are a lot of them. You can have a low per capita ratio of Olympic winners to not-that-athletic citizens and still come out with a pretty good medal total. Of course that gives China and India even less excuse!
In the Paris Olympics, the country with the highest ratio of medal winners to population was actually Grenada. The country won 2 medals and only has a population of about 56K. Respect, Grenada, respect.
AMERICANS NOT THAT GREAT AT WINTER OLYMPICS THOUGH 🙁
And, if we’re going to give credit where credit is due, we have to acknowledge that Norway, Germany, and Russia have won more medals at the Winter Olympics than America has. So maaaaaybe if a sport is practiced on snow or ice, Americans aren’t the all-time greatest. There is simply too much competition from other countries in the Winter Olympics. Norway, for example, has done so much winning in the history of the Winter Olympic games that it’s probably not likely to give up its place on the all-time leaderboard any time soon. This is impressive given that not that many more people live in Norway than in Alabama!
VERDICT: If we’re talking Olympics, Americans are the greatest! Shout out to some other nations, but Americans still rock the podium more than anyone else.
EVERYBODY LOVES TO VISIT AMERICA THOUGH, RIGHT?
Sort of. More people visit America each year than visit Italy. This is impressive because….well, Italy! Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Tuscany. Not to mention wine and food. So the fact that Americans can compete with all that is amazing.
But the truth is, more people visit Europe than any other area of the planet. And in Europe, more people visit France than anywhere else in the world.
But people don’t love the French, you exclaim! Maybe, maybe not. But everyone who wants to travel wants to visit Paris. Tourism to Paris alone is expected to bring in $49 billion by 2032. People want to see the Louvre. They want to see Notre Dame. They want to see the Eiffel Tower. They want to see the Seine River. They want to see Paris!
So a lot of people spend a lot of money in France. So far, the French seem to be able to handle it. France has been the world’s most visited destination for decades.
AT LEAST AMERICA DOESN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ‘OVERTOURISM’
But Americans may have reason to be glad that their country isn’t the world’s most visited destination. The Spanish are getting pretty fed up with tourism because it has morphed into ‘overtourism.’ Way too many people travel to way too many places causing way too much havoc. There’s big money in tourism (around 11 trillion dollars it’s estimated), but it’s big money that comes with high social costs. Some residents of Spain have responded by encouraging tourists to go home. And they don’t necessarily say that in the politest possible way.
Overtourism contributes to air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution, and the incredibly annoying Instagram feeds of show-offy people. Some places are capping the number of visitors in hopes of gaining some sort of control over the situations.
Some speculate that people are over-touristing these days because they are getting revenge against COVID-19 for depriving them for a few years of their right to be somewhere other than where they live. The problems are probably a deeper rooted than that though. The reality is that there is a worldwide shortage of affordable housing. And that shortage is made worse by things like AirBnB. Because people can make lots of money charging people to live in a dwelling on a short-term basis. Which means more housing stock moves toward accommodating tourism than to residents. Which means that utrammeled capitalism has once again severely misallocated resources.
Sooooooooo……. people all over the world are pissed. By 2024, Portugal’s tourism sector, for example, had grown by almost 25% over 2019 levels. That makes tourism account for almost 20% of Portugal’s economy. This may make the Portuguese government happy, but it makes the Portuguese angry. Relying on tourism for your economy can be a pretty miserable way to live for lots of reasons.
Yeah, but what about Americans?
Americans generally rank third in the world travel and tourism sweepstakes. That is, America is the world’s third most visited destination after France and Spain. A lot of the visitors to America come from the nearby nations of Canada and Mexico.
On the other hand, the World Economic Forum thinks Americans rank number one in terms of travel and tourism development, whatever that means. America has actually dropped down the rankings of most visited countries since 2016; more people used to visit America than Spain.
When the peoples of the world do visit America, the place they like to go is New York City. 56 million people visited the city of New York in 2022. And that’s down from pre-pandemic numbers. 70 million people visited New York in 2019.
In what I guess is bad news for the ‘Make America Great Again’ crowd, the world already thinks some Americans are great and those Americans are blue-state, died-in-the-wool liberal New Yorkers. Oh well.
VERDICT: Americans are great at attracting visitors from other countries to gawk in wonder at American greatness. Specifically, New Yorkers are great! But Parisians are even better.
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