Bangkok--21 Apr--UNISBKK
With fewer children being born and people living longer, the population of the Asia-Pacific region is steadily growing older — so much so, that since 2000, the region’s annual population growth has fallen to 1.1 per cent — the lowest rate among the world’s developing regions.
This finding is one of many contained in the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2008, released today by the United Nations’ regional arm—the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The wide-ranging Yearbook is the region’s leading compilation of
statistical data which provides a detailed picture of the major economic, social and environmental trends over the past two decades.
“The Yearbook provides a balanced overview of the region’s economic, social and environmental progress,” said Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. “Informed decision making requires the provision of accurate data that is comparable across countries and over time.”
“ESCAP is determined to ensure that the region’s policymakers have access to quality information required to guide their work during these challenging times. The publication’s new format is also more accessible to the lay readers who are interested in keeping up with issues affecting their communities,” Dr. Heyzer continued.
This year’s report finds that death rates in Asia and the Pacific have continued to fall but birth rates have come down even more rapidly as families are having fewer children. Across the region, the number of children born per woman fell to 2.4 for the period 2000-2005, down from 2.9 per woman for the previous five years.
“We are familiar with population ageing in countries like Japan but the same phenomenon is now evident in many countries,” said Dr. Heyzer. “Once the total fertility rate falls below the replacement rate of 2.1, we can expect the region’s population to start shrinking.”,
Fertility has fallen below replacement level in 16 countries, including China, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In some countries, such as Niue, Georgia, Armenia and the Russian Federation, the population is already falling.
A number of countries still have fertility rates above 3.0 children per woman — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste.
Migration continues to shape the region In many countries, the effects of falling birth rates are being reinforced by emigration. Generally, migrants move to other countries within the region. In Asia and the Pacific as a whole, 1.2 per cent of the population, or 50 million people, are foreign born.
The countries losing the highest proportions of their populations are generally small island states in the Pacific where emigration rates can be 15 per cent of the population or more. Migrants from these and other countries are heading for the region’s richer economies; they now make up more than 40 per cent of the populations of Singapore and Hong Kong, China.
Australia too has many people who are foreign born, accounting for more than 20 per cent of its population. But migrants also go further afield.
The region as a whole has experienced net emigration: 1.3 million people a year over the period 2000-2005, primarily to the Middle East, Europe and North America — although, as a result of the economic crisis, migrants are beginning to return.
Number of disaster-related deaths grows as cities are hit by over-crowding The economic crisis is not the only shock that the region is experiencing.
The Yearbook also points out that, in recent years, nature too has delivered some terrible blows. For Asia and the Pacific, the year 2008 was truly disastrous. From January to September, a total of 28 disasters caused by natural hazards — chiefly earthquakes, floods and typhoons — affected more than 101 million people, killed more than 223,000, and caused more than $103 billion worth of economic damage.
One reason for greater vulnerability is that more people are crowded together in cities, often on marginal land in fragile housing. The Yearbook shows that the region’s urban population has been growing at 2.3 per cent per year, with more than half the increase coming from migration from the rural areas. The influx has put pressure on urban infrastructure and resources, resulting in around one-third of the urban population being forced to live in slums.
Many cities are struggling to offer sufficient vital services. Although the region has on average been able to improve water supplies, for example, the situation has deteriorated in the region’s least developed countries, where between 1990 and 2005 the proportion of the urban population with access to improved water sources fell from 88 to 80 per cent. This was a result of deteriorating urban access in many Pacific island states, as well as in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal.
Environment under pressure as more water and energy are needed
The Yearbook also emphasizes the importance of water for many other aspects of development, and warns that many countries are now facing greater water stress. However, this is not primarily because of the need to provide water for more households: people in the region on average use less than 50 cubic metres each per year, compared with more than 200 cubic metres in North America, for example. Domestic users account for less than eight per cent of the total water use in the region.
Far more water, around 79 per cent, is used in agriculture. Industry also uses a more modest amount, but it is becoming increasingly thirsty. In China and Viet Nam, between 1992 and 2002, industrial water withdrawal more than tripled. The Yearbook indentifies a number of countries already in severe water stress, such as Singapore and the Maldives, as well as others facing stress periodically, including India, the Republic of Korea and Pakistan, which have per capita renewable water resources of less than 1,700 cubic metres per year.
Another serious environmental concern highlighted in the Yearbook is energy consumption. Over the region as a whole, per capita consumption has been rising at two to three per cent per year. The fastest growth has been in China, India and some of the region’s middle-income economies where there has been a considerable expansion of electricity-generating capacity. Yet many of the poorer communities still do not enjoy the benefits of this.
“At present more than 1.7 billion people in Asia and the Pacific rely on traditional biomass for their basic energy needs, so we are likely to see energy consumption increase as more people get connected to electricity grids,” said ESCAP’s Dr. Heyzer. “All countries will therefore need to be concerned about how efficiently they use energy, especially when fossil fuels provide around 80 per cent of current energy supplies.”
The Yearbook reports that many countries are becoming more energy efficient but will need to make even greater efforts if they are to pursue a sustainable energy path while also minimizing the emissions of the greenhouse gases that are contributing to global climate change.
The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2008 uses data collected from a wide range of international organizations, both within and outside of the UN system.
For more information, please contact:
Ms. Haishan Fu
Officer-in-Charge, Statistics Division, ESCAP
Tel.: (66) 2 22881653
Mobile: (66) 8 7807 4267
Email: stat[email protected]
Mr. Brian Thomson
UN Information Services (UNIS), ESCAP
Tel: (66) 2 288 1862
Mobile: (66) 89-927-1986
Email: [email protected] and [email protected]