Fostering the Human Resource Base for Sustainable Development: Toward a 21st Century Population Policy Paradigm

I will start with the need for a new population policy paradigm that covers the concerns of ageing and shrinking populations in addition to those of growing populations. Such a new paradigm should explicitly incorporate education in addition to the conventional age and sex. It thus adds the quality dimension to the consideration of population trends and their consequences. Based on the reconstructions to 1960 and projections to 2060 by age, sex and 7 levels of educational attainment for 170 countries produced at IIASA the returns to education have been estimated for aspects ranging from economic growth, to health, democracy, vulnerability to natural disasters and adaptive capacity to climate change. The strong effect of female education on reducing high fertility makes education a key strategy (together with family planning) towards population stabilization. In the context of ageing and shrinking societies this human resource based approach suggests that higher productivity of better educated younger cohorts can compensate for their smaller number. A consistent new population policy paradigm on fostering the human resource base for sustainable development would also make the population community much more relevant for the currently ongoing policy discussions about 21st century sustainable development and climate change.