How demographic change will likely affect the global order…Shahid Javed Burki

Significant demographic changes are occurring across the globe that are likely to affect relations among nations. Immigration has become a major political issue in the United States and Western Europe. As the Democrats and Republican parties in the United States prepared their electoral programmes for the presidential poll of November 2024, controlling immigration climbed to the top of the agenda. Using immigration, the political right has done well in several elections in recent months in various parts of Europe.

Demographers define 2.1 children per woman as the replacement level. With this as the rate of human fertility, population will remain steady. Above that rate, populations will increase, below it they will decline in size. In the developed world – the United States and Europe – the rate of fertility has fallen well below the replacement level. The result is that the populations of these countries are declining and rapidly aging. This has some obvious economic and social consequences. Economies need the youth to empower them; with aging, they don’t have the type of labour they need to grow.

Africa, on the other hand, is at the other end of the demographic spectrum. Most African women have far more children than other continents do. For instance, women in Nigeria have an average of over five children, while American and European women have about 1.5 children and Chinese women have even fewer. The continent of Africa has been at the centre of global population growth in recent times. The continent’s population has increased from 283 million in 1960 to more than 1.5 billion in 2024. This is a more than five-fold increase. African population is projected to increase by 950 million and touch 2.5 billion by 2050. By that time, it would be close to the population of Asia which at this time has the world’s two most populous states – India and China.

One consequence of the much higher rate of growth of the African populations is that they are trying to escape poverty that results because of large families by moving to the places where there is unmet demand for workers. Over the last several years, caravans of people have crossed the Sahara Desert and headed to Europe. They cross the Mediterranean in rickety, not-quite seaworthy, boats to reach the shores of Europe, aided by people-smugglers. Italy is a favourite destination. Boats often break down, drowning the human cargo they are carrying.

Those who manage to get into Europe can travel in the continent, unconstrained by the need for travel documents. While Europe needs workers that it cannot produce on its own, it is not very welcoming to the migrants from Africa. Colour of the skin and the faith of the new arrivals are two reasons why the migrant stream is not greatly welcome. A significant number of people getting into Europe are black Africans or brown Middle Easterners, mostly Muslims. They are generally not welcome in most of the countries of the continent. The political backlash can be – in fact has been – severe in some of the nations where the newcomers have gone. Germany is an outstanding example of the political change immigration is bringing to the country.

Canada offers an interesting example of how a long immigrant-friendly country is changing course. This development was examined in some detail in The New York Times article written by Matina Stevis-Gridneff and published by the newspaper on October 13, 2024. The article told the story of the 23-year old Indian immigrant, Sachindeep Singh, who arrived in Canada as an international student in 2019. “His immigrations status permitted him to work and offered a path to permanent residence, an approach labeled ‘study-work-stay’ on the Canadian government’s immigration website,” wrote Stevis-Gridneff. “But after inviting millions of newcomers into Canada in recent years to help lift the economy, the government has reversed course amid growing concerns that immigrants are contributing to the country’s deepening challenges around housing health care and other issues.” In the reaction to this developing situation, Marc Miller, the immigration minister, announced a series of cuts to immigration quotas that in the past contributed significantly to growth in the country’s population. Nearly three million people living in Canada have some type of immigration status, with 2.2 million arriving in just the past two years. Temporary residents represent 6.8 per cent of the country’s total population of 41.3 million, up from 3.5 per cent in 2022. India has contributed a significant proportion of the immigrant population. Indian Sikhs have large number of people resident in the country and have been active in the campaign to create an autonomous Sikh state in the northern part of what was once their own country. This has led to the Indian government headed by Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, to allow the killing of Sikh dissidents who have been long residents of Canada. The alleged involvement of the Indian government in the killing of a prominent Canadian Sikh leader has resulted in development of serious tension between Ottawa and Delhi. I will take up this subject in a later article.

Population declines will undoubtedly result in economic stagnation which in turn would produce social and political tensions. Large-scale migrations from the people-abundant Global South to the demographically challenged Global North would solve the problem by bringing people who can fill the gap between population growth and economic advance. However, large infusion of people from the Global South while taking care of economic and social needs of the countries in the Global North create another set of problems. These would be caused by the entry of people of colour and often following different faiths to bring in social and cultural change that would not sit well with the majority of citizens in the developed world. While in today’s article I have focused on the demographic change that is occurring in the more developed countries, in the article next week I will use the recent developments in Britain and the focus on cross-border movements in the United States by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the presidential election of November 5, 2024, as two examples – but not the only ones – of the serious tensions being caused by the mixing of colour and religion.

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