Hans Rosling and His Explanation on Population Growth

Hans starts of talking about how astounded he was when his teacher in school told him that the world population had become three billion people; back in 1960. Rosling explains that instead of using digital technology; he is going to use IKEA boxes to represent one billion people. He first starts explaining how things were in 1960: the blue IKEA box was the developed countries, who had gone through industrialization, while the two green boxes were the developing countries. Hans goes on explaining that there was a major gap between the industrialized and and developed worlds; one example that he gives is how the individuals in the west were saving up money to buy a car but people in the developing countries were saving up money to buy shoes. Hans observes how big of a gap this was back in the 1960s and concludes that the world has to change its mindset about the west and the rest. Rosling further explains the situation in 2010; the population size has doubled since he had gone to school. In the west, the economy kept growing, but the most successful developing countries have also moved on.

However, in the very poor economies, they are still in the same situation they were in 50 years back. Now that there is more middle class the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is wider than ever. By 2050, Rosling explains, the lower half of the middle class will move up only if we invest in the write green technology so energy will be relatively cheap they can move up to a higher level. He describes that the poorest two billion will keep increasing in size due to the population growth. Rosling concludes that in order to stop the exponentially increasing population growth they need to be provided with education. Rosling shows a population growth graph from the 1960s to 2008. We see in 1960 that there is a 60-70% chance that a child will survive and a mother will also have 6-8 children in a developing country. By 2008, we see a 90-100% chance that a child will survive in most of the world and family planning is increasing. Although, the two billion people who still have a 60-70% chance of surviving with families that lack family planning remain. Rosling concludes, that in order to prevent this situation we have to take action to continue to improve child survival.