The future belongs to the cities. There is little doubt about it. There may be variations, oscillations, changes and unforeseen events – the pandemic and its demographic effects is a good example—but the trend is clear and has been seen coming for some time. That urban areas are going to take the demographic toast does not mean, in any case, that they are free of challenges.
They have them. And serious. The fertility rates —the average number of children born per woman— of the largest urban areas show that they have an alarming problem: their low birth rate. So few babies are born that, at least in 2020, in most cases the data was in the “red”. The number of children per woman was not enough to “replenish” the population.
What do the statistics tell us? The tables made by Birth Gauge with 2020 data from City Population leave some interesting reading. The study analyzes the fertility rate —TFR, for its acronym in English— of the 39 largest megacities on the planet, which are home to more than 10 million people. What is your first conclusion, the most important? That their fertility is below 2 in 79% of the urban areas analyzed, so that women are having less than two children on average, a figure that does not reach the replacement rate.
In other words, not enough children are born to “take over” from their fathers and mothers. The ideal for a population, at least at a demographic level, is for its average to be above 2.1. The number of mega urban areas that meet that requirement is even smaller.
Table of fertility rates in the world’s largest metropolitan areas. Only 6 of the world’s 39 mega-urban regions (with a population greater than 10M) are above replacement level. pic.twitter.com/ly5Ww82yw1
— Birth Gauge (@BirthGauge) April 10, 2022
Bad in general terms… and when comparing. That’s how it is. The statistics leave yet another negative reading. It’s not just that your fertility rate is in the “red”; It is also that, in most cases, the data for large urban areas is below that for the country as a whole. For example, in the Delhi metropolitan area it is 1.6, while for the whole of India it is 2.05. Something similar happens with Bangkok. Your data is 0.85. The one from Thailand, 1.25.
When you go down to detail, you can see that the biggest problem is XXL urban areas, those with more than 20 million inhabitants, such as Beijing, Mexico City, Shanghai, Seoul or Tokyo. If the average fertility rate of the world’s megacities stands at 1.62, in your case drops to 1.42. Those located below that range – from 10 to 20 million – are at 1.74.
What is the explanation? Figures, rates and percentages aside, the data has a clear reading: in the “urban mega areas” women have few children, less than their compatriots installed in other municipalities with more discreet registers. That does not mean that the problem is exclusive to this type of large population, mind you. If anything they accentuate a much more general reality.
World Bank data shows how East Asia and the Pacific, Europa, North America, Latin America u Middle East and North Africa chained for decades a decline in fertility rates. An example: if in 1965 a woman from East Asia or the Pacific registered 5.7 births on average, in 1990 there were already 2.5 and in 2020 the figure stood at 1.8. In the European Union we went from 2.6 in 1965 to 1.5 in 2020, although in the 90s the figure became lower.
The explanation? A cocktail of factors. Cultural and social changes, greater access of women to education and the labor market, also a greater use of contraceptive methods and —just as key— the decrease in infant mortality, which explains why women today have fewer births than half a century ago. Furthermore, mega urban areas can present added factors that affect the cost of living, education, culture and economy. Among all, one of those that has perhaps had the greatest impact is the increase in women in the labor market.
“Women abandon what until now had been the main stage of their activity, the home, where they carried out unpaid work, and begin to participate actively in the labor market. Faced with this process of change, they break fixed structures, in such a way that a problem arises caused, among other causes, by the existing emptiness in the home. This problem, apart from another series of consequences, can even bring about a decrease in the birth rate”, reflects Mª del Rosario Marínfrom the University of Cadiz.
Does that mean mega cities will die? No. In 2018 the UN calculated that around 55% of the world population lived in cities and estimated that the figure would rise to 68% in 2050. The pandemic has led many to rediscover the attractiveness of rural areas, but experts have long drawn a future which will be predominantly urban. The trend is not new, moreover; It has been brewing for quite some time: at least in 2018, 4.2 billion people lived in cities. There are many, many more than the 751 in the mid-20th century.
The rise has also been pronounced in megacities. Professor Edward Relph of the University of Toronto, remember that in 1950 there were only two cities with more than 10 million inhabitants: New York and Tokyo. In 1970 the list had risen to three and in 2020, according to UN data, there was already 34, a figure that some sources raised to more than 40. Current data shows that most megacities are located in Asia, followed by America. The presence of Europe in the City Population tables is testimonialwith only three cores.
The UN leaves, yes, a notice to mariners: “Megacities will not lead urban population growth, but it will be cities with less than one million inhabitants, especially in Asia and Africa, that will lead the trend. While one in eight people live in the former, the latter are home to about half of the world’s urban population.
Migration, essential. How then is it possible for large cities to grow with fertility rates below replacement level? The key is largely in the migratory flow, the transfer of population arriving from other populations, which does not have to translate into international immigration. If the UN predictions come true and we reach 68% in 2050, it will be possible, to a large extent, due to the transfer of people from outside the metropolis.
“Part of the world’s population will move their place of residence from rural to urban environments, and this prediction is compounded by the prospects for population growth, according to which an additional 2.5 billion people will live in cities by that date” , notes the UNwhich calculates that after reaching 3.4 billion people, rural areas will register a population drop that will place them at 3.1 billion in 2050, much of it in Asia and Africa.
Cover Image | Ryoji Iwata (Unsplash)
