Over the years, data from many countries show that when the death rates of children ages five and younger decline, fertility rates also eventually drop. In other words, when children survive, parents have smaller families.
With World Population Day upon us Thursday, we invite you to check out a post we ran last year that looks at how improving child survival rates affects population growth. For a visual explanation of how this works, we’re indebted to the work of Hans Rosling, professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. His entertaining and enlightening video is embedded in the post.
What about family planning?
For Rosling’s thoughts about population stabilization to work, women and men will need access to safe and effective reproductive health supplies. On World Population Day 2012, we asked Jane Hutchings, leader of our program in reproductive health, what’s new in contraception and how to get contraceptives to the people who want them. See what Jane had to say.