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Page added on February 14, 2014
The World’s Ticking Population Bomb
Demographers are not as worried today as they were several decades ago about the prospect of a “population bomb,” a scenario where so many people come to populate the planet that we exhaust its resources. Population growth has slowed in many parts of the world. And in much of North America, Europe, China, and Brazil, fertility rates are so low that local populations are on pace to decline.
These trends, however, don’t cover the whole story of human impact on the environment. The growth in the number of humans on earth may be slowing. But something very different is happening in the growth of human households.
Researchers Mason Bradbury, M. Nils Peterson, and Jianguo Liu identify some hidden but seismic shifts on this front in a new paper in the journal Population and Environment. For years – in some countries, centuries – the average household has been shrinking in size. As a result, the total number of global households is growing much faster than the growth of the world population itself.
Why does this matter? In the U.S. and Europe, the average household included about five people in the late 1800s. Now it has more like 2.5. That means the same number of people today live in twice as many homes, requiring twice as many resources to build and furnish them, to heat and cool them, to pave roads to their front doors. This “household explosion” has long been underway in developed countries. But it’s rapidly accelerating throughout the rest of the world.
Now, if developing societies follows suit – mimicking a pattern where household size plummets in tandem with urbanization and industrialization – then “billions of households could be formed,” Bradbury and his co-authors warn, “despite declines in population growth.”
This graph from their paper reflects data the researchers collected on 213 nations, territories, and colonies, relying on historic data going as far back as 1600 in documents like censuses and books. Across all of these decades and countries, the definition of “household” has varied. But, acknowledging that limitation, the authors have tried to highlight some underlying patterns. In the graph below, each point represents the average household size of a particular nation during the census corresponding to that year:
“Longterm dynamics of household size and their environmental implications,” by M. Bradbury et al. in Population and Environment.
According to that picture, developed nations reached a tipping point in 1893 when household size began to rapidly drop. Over the course of the next century, households fell in size by half, from 5.0 to 2.5. In 1987, developing countries appear to have reached a similar threshold, with an even steeper downturn since.
With some fluctuation, this long-term pattern holds in nearly every country in the study:
Across all of these places and time periods, and with only a few exceptions, the number of households grew faster than the number of people.
A lot of forces have been driving us in this direction. The population is aging. Women are having smaller families, and children are leaving home sooner to start their own households. Singletons are on the rise, alongside the social acceptance of unmarried women living alone. Divorce rates are rising, while inter-generational households are growing less common. And as once-poor parts of the world are becoming wealthier, families that previously crammed under one roof together can now afford to spread out a little more.
In the U.S., demographers and economists have been waiting for household formation to increase, as a hopeful sign that Millenials’ job prospects are improving enough to abandon their parents’ basements. On a global scale, the trend may similarly have positive implications for local economies, in the construction of new housing and the demand for more household goods.
But this is also what worries scientists concerned about global sustainability. Smaller households are on average less efficient (the opposite is true of smaller houses). They demand, per person, more land, more energy, more water. As Bradbury and his co-authors frame it:
From a more simplistic perspective, declining household sizes, from over 5 to approximately 2.5, will mean approximately twice as many houses will be needed per capita in any areas of the world yet to undergo the shift in household size. If the average household size had been 2.5 people globally in 2010, then the number of households would have been 41 % higher, resulting in 800 million additional households…
That’s also 800 million more refrigerators and ovens and climate-control systems, 800 million more homes that need roads and sewage hookups and access to a power grid. If every one of those homes were the size of the average American home circa 2002, the researchers calculate that would mean constructing about 72,000 square miles of new housing on the planet.
That’s an intentionally dramatic illustration; American homes are a colossal outlier. But, in countries like China, the average home is already rapidly scaling up in size.
18 Comments on "The World’s Ticking Population Bomb"
Davy, Hermann, MO on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 5:59 pm
Demographers are not as worried today as they were several decades ago about the prospect of a “population bomb,” a scenario where so many people come to populate the planet that we exhaust its resources.
Guys is there any hope in this world if the supposedly smart people cannot connect the dots?
Northwest Resident on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 6:51 pm
Didn’t we just see this article yesterday under a different title:
http://peakoil.com/enviroment/population-bomb-may-be-defused-but-research-reveals-ticking-household-bomb
Not exactly the same article, but still dissing individual homes, same basic point of view on the same subject. Whatever. Repetition is good, sometimes.
And hey, I’m all for living in multi-family units. But they need to start making those walls a lot thicker and a lot more sound proof. Living next to or under or over another residence where the partying never stops or where some otherwise obnoxious behavior is frequently going on is not “living” in my book, it is “surviving”. Just thinking about the last apartment I rented before I bought my house — it was a real horror show. Of course, in a post-collapse world scenario, there hopefully won’t be many of those partiers left, so maybe I can revisit the multi-family scenario someday and find that it has vastly improved.
FriedrichKling on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 6:56 pm
FACT:
A net gain of 225,000 humans every 24 hours while during the same time period mankind was the causative force behind the extinction of 200 (on average) animal and plant species.
YET:
Demographers are not as worried today as they were.
RESULT:
Near term human extinction, which in of itself is not bad, but we will destine the remainder of Earth’s biodiversity into the oblivion of extinction as well.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 7:16 pm
Somewhere, someone in the world is going to keep burning coal until the very end, same as somewhere in the world a junkie is going to keep shooting up the shit until “the very end”.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 7:18 pm
WTF! I was on another article, posted on that, the post went to a wrong article and that wrong article is what reloaded on my PC. THAT was a server error, as personally observed and witnessed by an professional web developer. Ghastly! But regarding the comment — you get the picture.
action on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 8:45 pm
Agreed NWR, I dont care if my living in a house personally destroys the world, I’m not living in apartment or any where directly connected to other people. 1 in a 1000 is as smart as I am, not bragging but just saying a refuse to live next to other peoples retarded noises.
GregT on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 9:14 pm
action,
1 in 1000? You’re probably giving other people far too much credit.
J-Gav on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 10:17 pm
Whole lotta tickin’ goin’ on …
MSN fanboy on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 11:25 pm
This is specifically for Rockman…
In the previous post, you talked of “pod” and the economics of producing oil.
BTW I accept your critic, being we now spend triple as many dollars on oil.
What I wish to understand from your perspective is “The economic cost of oil”. Your argument is essentially we PRODUCE oil only at the RIGHT PRICE. i.e. above cost of production and profit involved. I agree (Imagine that) but I think where we differ is on the issue of a price cap.
I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) Your argument is when oil breaches a certain point, lets call it the PNR (Point of no return)the economy falters prices drop and production stops (therefore a “pod” event is the subject of discussion then)
In so far I agree, I do not see why (EVEN ADMIST A GREAT RECESSION) oil would remain a low price thereafter, if as we rationally assume oil is a “Master resource”. Surely oil prices would remain consistently high spurring more drilling, ??????
(I’m putting aside the renewables and efficiency argument’s that reduce our dependence)
I guess I just don’t see a price cap even at 1,000 Dollar barrel oil.
Sell it to me.???
MSN fanboy on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 11:30 pm
And as for this article…
…… Actually is pretty boring. Ill argue with you on something worthwhile.
Davey on Fri, 14th Feb 2014 11:57 pm
MSN oil is a commodity subject to laws of supply and demand. It does not matter the importance of it. A market will price discover based upon buyers and sellers. Markets are not always rational nor efficient. Quite often markets are distorted. Price is relative also. A low price in a deflated economy is still expensive. No different from a high price in an inflated economy. LSS oil prices will swing between a goldilocks range long term or production or the economy will suffer. Short term the swings can be wild
Makati1 on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 1:30 am
All of you ‘individuals’ who say they will never live with/near others are just kidding yourself. The only guaranteed way to never have to share your space with others is called death. Then you can get a nice little space all your own.
You cannot say what you will do before you die because you simply do not know. I suspect, at some point, you will be happy to live with 20 others in a house if it meant you could continue living.
Never say never. You can say that you prefer privacy, but that is all you can definitely be sure of. Westerners are so spoiled!
andya on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 2:51 am
The never ending quest for more continues. It’s what humans do. If this trend continues in another 150 years there will be zero people per household.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 3:27 am
MSN — I’m sure rockman can give you a great answer. You might also look for the answer to your question in this excellent article:
The Real Oil Extraction Limit, and How It Affects the Downslope
“Oil Prices Don’t Rise High Enough.” The problem is caused by a mismatch between wages (which are not growing very quickly) and the cost of oil extraction (which is growing quickly). If oil prices rose as fast as extraction costs, they would leave workers with a smaller and smaller percentage of their wages to spend on food, clothing, and other necessities–something that doesn’t work for very long. Let me explain what happens.
Because of diminishing returns, the cost of oil extraction keeps rising. It is hard for oil prices to increase enough to provide an adequate profit for producers, because if they did, workers would get poorer and poorer. In fact, oil prices already seem to be too low. In years past, oil companies found that the price they sold oil for was sufficient (a) to cover the complete costs of extraction, (b) to pay dividends to stockholders, (c) to pay required governmental taxes, and (d) to provide enough funds for investment in new wells, in order to keep production level, or even increase it. Now, because of the rapidly rising cost of new extraction, oil companies are finding that they are coming up short in this process.
Oil companies have begun returning money to stockholders in increased dividends, rather than investing in projects which are likely to be unprofitable at current oil prices. See Oil companies rein in spending to save cash for dividends. If our need for investment dollars is escalating because of diminishing returns in oil extraction, but oil companies are reining in spending for investments because they don’t think they can make an adequate return at current oil prices, this does not bode well for future oil extraction.
A related problem is debt limits for oil companies. If cash flow does not provide sufficient funds for investment, increased debt can be used to make up the difference. The problem is that credit limits are soon reached, leading to a need to cut back on new projects. This is particularly a concern where high cost investment is concerned, such as oil from shale formations. A rise in interest rates would also be a problem, because it would raise costs, leading to a higher required oil price for profitability. The debt problem affects high priced oil investments in other countries as well. OGX, the second largest oil company in Brazil, recently filed for bankruptcy, after it ran up too much debt.
National oil companies don’t explain that they are finding it hard to generate enough cash flow for further investment. They also don’t explain that they are having a hard time finding sites to drill that will be profitable at current prices. Instead, we are seeing more countries with national oil companies looking for outside investors, including Brazil and Mexico. Brazil received only one bid, and that for the minimum amount, indicating that oil companies making the bids do not have high confidence that investment will be profitable, either. Meanwhile, newspapers spin the story in a totally misleading way, such as, Mexico Gears Up for an Oil Boom of Its Own.
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/12/18/th-real-oil-extraction-limit-and-how-it-affects-the-downslope/
RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 3:32 am
The guy that wrote this article is probably smoking crack.
GregT on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 7:08 am
Well Richard,
Perhaps we should all vote for him in the next election then. After all, it’s probably better to be a crack smoker, and have some understanding of reality, than to be a tea totaler and have no clue.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 12:03 pm
Richard you ever been to a party and it was too crowded. It not very fun when your feet get stepped on, the floor smells of beer, you can’t hear, and the line to the punch bowl is long.
Kenz300 on Sat, 15th Feb 2014 5:05 pm
The never ending population growth makes all other problems harder to solve…….. energy crisis, water crisis, Climate crisis, unemployment crisis, pollution crisis, declining fish stocks crisis, and the big one is the over population crisis…..