NEIGHBORS' PROBLEMS, OUR PROBLEMS: POPULATION GROWTH IN CENTRAL AMERICA

NEIGHBORS’ PROBLEMS, OUR PROBLEMS: POPULATION GROWTH IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version.

NEIGHBORS’ PROBLEMS, OUR PROBLEMS: POPULATION GROWTH IN CENTRAL AMERICA
An NPG Forum Paper
by Robert W. Fox
June 1990

This is the seventh in a series of NPG FORUM papers exploring the idea of the optimum population- what would be a desirable population size for the United States? Without any consensus even as to whether the population should be larger or smaller, the country presently creates its demographic future by inadvertence as it makes decisions on other issues that influence population change.

The approach we have adopted is the “foresight” process. We have asked specialists in various fields in examine the connection between alternative population futures and national or social objectives in their fields of interest. In this issue of the FOR UM, Mr. Fox describes what has happened to Central America, a topic relevant to the United States not only because of the example it provides of runaway population growth but also because its demographic future is closely linked with ours.

Mr. Fox has been on the staff of the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank. He is presently co-authoring a series of reports that capture world population growth issues in three-dimensional computer graphics and text.

I was walking through the streets of Cartago, Costa Rica, some twenty years ago when the bells rang and the elementary schools let out. A thousand scrubbed and uniformed children flooded the streets. That Lilliputian world was a dramatic reminder that Costa Rica, like the rest of Central America, is a nation of children. Nearly half the population is under 15.

Central America’s population explosion was captured for me in that incident. Today, ever larger numbers of children are pressing hard On small and shrinking economies. The 8 million Central American children (0- 15) in 1970 represented a large increase from 4 million in 1950. There are 13 million now. If projections hold true, there will be 19 million by 2025.

….Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.