So let's take a look at how changes in fertility rates and changes in life expectancy at birth affect the size of human populations in different parts of the world. First of all, I'd like to define different regions here so that you focus your attention on different geographies around the world. So I'm going to give you data for the following regions, Africa, Eastern Asia, which includes China, Japan, the two Koreas, and Mongolia. Southeastern Asia, which includes countries such Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, among others. South-Central Asia, which includes every country from Iran, to the west, to Bangladesh, in the east, plus all of the so-called Stans, the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. And by the way, this region includes India, which is one of the largest countries in the world, in terms of population. Then another region we're going to consider is Western Asia. This is what most people refer to as the Middle East. This includes all countries from Turkey, in the west, all the way to Iraq, in the east, plus all of the republics in the Caucasus and in the Arabian Peninsula. And then I'm also going to give you data, separately, for Europe, including the Russian Federation, as part of Europe, and separately for Latin America and the Caribbean. Lets just start with this chart, you see, the first time that I drew this chart, about ten years ago, I could not believe my eyes. Let me explain what's on the chart, the time period is the same that we've been using. It starts in 1950, and goes to the year 2015, with actual recorded data. And then from 2015 onwards, until the year 2100, we have medium projections, as published by the United Nations. Vertically, what we're measuring is the percentage of the world's population that lives in a particular region of the world as of a given year. So for instance, in the year 1950, you can see, over here, that about 9% of the population lived in Africa. That's the thickest line that you see on the chart. Well, if you examine the chart carefully, you will see that there are two parts of the world that have already grown quite a bit relative to others, but will continue to grow very quickly over the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Those two regions are Africa, and the second one is South-Central Asia, which remember, includes India. Now, at the same time, there are two parts of the world that are going to witness a relative decline, in terms of the size of their human populations. One is East Asia, which includes China, remember, and the other one is Europe, which is going to experience the fastest decline, in relative terms, of its population. The United States, you can see at the bottom of the chart, will have, more or less, a stable population, relative to the size of the entire human population in the whole world, with a slight decline, and so will Latin America. Western Asia, which is the Middle East, will experience somewhat of an increase. But what I really want to emphasize here is that the game-changing regions, from the demographic point of view, are going to be Africa and South-Central Asia, on the one hand, in terms of increases. And then when it comes to declines, it's going to be Europe and East Asia. So in other words, there is one part of the world that is very rich, that's Europe, that relative to other parts of the world, is going to shrink in size. And that the same time there is an emerging part of the world, which is East Asia, including China, that is also going to be shrinking. So in other words, these trends will be affecting both emerging economies and more advanced or richer economies. I'd like you to consider, over the next few weeks of class here, a very important question. You saw the phenomenal increase of population in Africa, so the question is the following. What do you think are the implications of rapid demographic growth in Africa for global economic and geopolitical dynamics? Over the course of the next few weeks of class, we're going to be analyzing several ways in which the growth of the population in Africa is going to be impacting global dynamics.
