Good News - Or Is It?
Hidden away in the back pages of newspapers one can delve a little deeper and on occasion find a good-news story among all those of disasters, natural and man-made. It's a refreshing change to discover something positive happening in an avalanche of misery. One can only wonder why a story like increased longevity in developing countries isn't trumpeted on the first page of every newspaper.
Not of sufficient interest? Doesn't have the drama and the fascination of all those other stories of violent civil unrest, internecine battles, factional and sectarian bloodlettings in countries around the world? Are we so utterly devoted to disaster and tut-tutting the world's insanities?
Guess so. Something to make us feel superior telling ourselves we're far more rational than the violence-prone psychopaths that prowl the globe.
So here's the scoop: We're progressing as a biological mass on this globe; world population is on a roll. All right, maybe that's not so wonderful, given our finite resources, and our current struggles to feed the populations already peopling the globe. A projected figure of seven billion by 2012 may be seen as questionable fodder for celebration by many.
But surely not the fact that life expectancy in the poorest developing countries of the world is on a steep increase? And this, mostly attributable to the successes realized in reducing infant and child mortality. Everyone should be ecstatic about that. That children are given the chance to surmount the dreadful difficulties to their survival in environments hostile to them.
"If you can eliminate the killers for children and babies then you can have a relatively high life expectancy" according to Gerhard Hailing, chief of the Population Estimates and Projections Section of the United Nations. The battles against HIV/AIDS and malaria are resulting in a great degree of success. Enabling children to live out some respectable years to maturity before the onset of chronic diseases related to the aging process.
The United Nations population projections newly released informs that life expectancy is set to rise to 69 years over the next forty years if progress in eliminating the threats to children and infants continue on track. That fairly well matches the current life expectancy in the world's wealthiest most advanced countries - where, in forty years average expectancy will rise to 83.
Damn! Why is it that good news invariably comes accompanied by not-so-good projections? Experts are hazarding the opinion that with longevity comes competition for scarcer employment opportunities, where in the developing world, without guaranteed retirement incomes the elderly poor will simply have to continue working, challenging younger workers for jobs.
A question of older workers, experienced in industry and production, facing up against young workers coming on stream, without experience, but eager to learn and to compete for finite job opportunities. And here's another little bit of data; the wealthier countries become, the more fertility rates decline, just as has occurred in developed countries.
Job creation on an ongoing, steady basis, appears to be the solution to potential labour shortages. "Without providing those jobs it's going to be very difficult to adapt to a much ageing population later", according to the director of the UN Population Division.
All of this sounds somehow familiar....
Not of sufficient interest? Doesn't have the drama and the fascination of all those other stories of violent civil unrest, internecine battles, factional and sectarian bloodlettings in countries around the world? Are we so utterly devoted to disaster and tut-tutting the world's insanities?
Guess so. Something to make us feel superior telling ourselves we're far more rational than the violence-prone psychopaths that prowl the globe.
So here's the scoop: We're progressing as a biological mass on this globe; world population is on a roll. All right, maybe that's not so wonderful, given our finite resources, and our current struggles to feed the populations already peopling the globe. A projected figure of seven billion by 2012 may be seen as questionable fodder for celebration by many.
But surely not the fact that life expectancy in the poorest developing countries of the world is on a steep increase? And this, mostly attributable to the successes realized in reducing infant and child mortality. Everyone should be ecstatic about that. That children are given the chance to surmount the dreadful difficulties to their survival in environments hostile to them.
"If you can eliminate the killers for children and babies then you can have a relatively high life expectancy" according to Gerhard Hailing, chief of the Population Estimates and Projections Section of the United Nations. The battles against HIV/AIDS and malaria are resulting in a great degree of success. Enabling children to live out some respectable years to maturity before the onset of chronic diseases related to the aging process.
The United Nations population projections newly released informs that life expectancy is set to rise to 69 years over the next forty years if progress in eliminating the threats to children and infants continue on track. That fairly well matches the current life expectancy in the world's wealthiest most advanced countries - where, in forty years average expectancy will rise to 83.
Damn! Why is it that good news invariably comes accompanied by not-so-good projections? Experts are hazarding the opinion that with longevity comes competition for scarcer employment opportunities, where in the developing world, without guaranteed retirement incomes the elderly poor will simply have to continue working, challenging younger workers for jobs.
A question of older workers, experienced in industry and production, facing up against young workers coming on stream, without experience, but eager to learn and to compete for finite job opportunities. And here's another little bit of data; the wealthier countries become, the more fertility rates decline, just as has occurred in developed countries.
Job creation on an ongoing, steady basis, appears to be the solution to potential labour shortages. "Without providing those jobs it's going to be very difficult to adapt to a much ageing population later", according to the director of the UN Population Division.
All of this sounds somehow familiar....
Labels: Economy, Realities, Society, World News
posted by Pieface | 6:00 PM
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