Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

There's an interesting link between Facts 1 and 2 that the author misses:

> Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year.

About half of this reduction (from 20 - 10 million) is because:

> Fact #2: Since 1960, the fertility rate has fallen by half.

Globally, the population of young people has decreased. Child mortality has decreased, too, but not by a factor of 3.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO.ZS World Bank reports 0-14 years, rather than 0-5 used for infant mortality.




You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B. That's faster than the fertility rate decreased.

> Globally, the population of young people has decreased.

The proportion of the population which are young people has decreased but the total population of young people has increased significantly: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO


> You seem to be forgetting that during this time period the world population grew from 2.5B to 7.5B.

Older people were also staying alive longer - the death rate no longer offset the birth rate to the same extent as before.


Indeed, I missed "% of total" on that graph, thanks




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: