Prosperous Paupers and Other Population ProblemsTransaction Publishers, 2000 - 272 pages In current intellectual and public discourse, the entire modern world-from the affluent United States to the poorest low-income regions-is beset today by a broad and alarming array of "population problems." Around the globe, leading scientists, academics, and political figures attribute poverty, hunger, social tension, and even political conflict to contemporary demographic trends. These authorities assert that the size, composition, and growth rate of population routinely pose direct and major threats to human well-being. They argue for interventions aimed specifically at altering society's demographic rhythms. In this wide-ranging and carefully reasoned book, renowned demographer and social scientist Nicholas Eberstadt challenges these ideas and exposes their glaring intellectual -shortcomings. Eberstadt makes the case that the very conception of "population problems" is inherently ambiguous and arbitrary, lending itself to faulty analysis and inappropriate diagnoses. Careless thinking about population is typically a result of inattention to, or indifference toward, the fundamental unit in all populations: the individual human being. In our time, Eberstadt writes, problems attributed to demographic trends are actually rooted in political and ethical situations. The brave new world of economic reform, far from bringing about the good society, serves only to postpone that society by a cavalier disregard of social and culture factors in human evolution. Eberstadt warns against a melodramatic approach to issues such as hunger and malnutrition. Material advances in the economy and cultural advances in the polity are safeguards against the worst outcomes of current problems in population. His reversal of cause and effect marks this as a volume apart, provocative, controversial, but surefooted in its scholarly sensibility and methods. In an academic world in which demographers are now speaking of the peaking of population rather than its infinite expansion, Eberstadt moves the discussion to family ties and common bonds. Demographers and family planners alike have much to learn from an approach that takes seriously the pitfalls as well as blessings of so-called zero-growth in the world -population. Nicholas Eberstadt is visiting fellow at the Harvard University Center for Population Studies and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is the author of The Poverty of Communism and Poverty in China, both available from Transaction. He is also the editor of Fertility Decline in the Less Developed Countries. |
Contents
Prosperous Paupers and Affluent Savages The New Challenges to Social Policy in America | 13 |
Why Babies Die in DC | 33 |
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Epidemiologist | 51 |
Population Problems Under Communism | 75 |
Mortality and the Fate of Communist States | 77 |
The Soviet Way of Death | 107 |
Health and Mortality in Eastern Europe Retrospect and Prospect | 119 |
Demographic Shocks in Eastern Germany 19891993 | 153 |
Global Population Problems | 173 |
Justifying Population Control The Latest Arguments | 175 |
Starved for Ideas Misconceptions that Hinder the Battle Against World Hunger | 187 |
Population Prospects for Eastern Asia to 2015 Trends and Implications | 201 |
What If Its a World Population Implosion? Speculations about Global DePopulation | 239 |
267 | |
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age-specific age-standardized mortality American Asia's Asian babies Bulgaria Cassen Census changes China cohorts communist countries Daniel Patrick Moynihan death rates decades decline Development Review District of Columbia early East Asia East Germany Eastern Asia Eastern Europe Eastern European Eastern Germany economic edition epidemiologist estimated example expectancy at birth females figures Germany's global Government higher illegitimacy income increase infant mortality rate International Japan Korea low birth weight low variant males marriage million mortality levels mortality trends Moynihan OECD overall patterns percent Policy Essay political Population and Development Population Division population growth population problems postcommunist poverty rate programs projections public health ratio reported rise societies South Korea Soviet bloc Soviet Union studies sub-replacement fertility tion U.N. Department U.S. Bureau U.S. Census Bureau United Nations Unweighted average Warsaw Pact Washington Western women World Health Organization World Health Statistics World Population World Population Prospects