성의학
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[조선일보 이자연 기자] 지난달 말 신문을 본 많은 독자들은 수십년간 인구통계학자들을 긴장시켰던 소위 ‘인구 폭발’론이 이제 폭발력이 떨어졌다는 사실을 알고 기분 좋게 놀랐을 것이다.
유엔의 인구분과는 최근 예측치를 하향조정해, 현재 63억명인 세계 인구가 2050년에는 90억명에 머물 것이라고 밝혔다.
10년 전 예측에 비하면 상당히 낮은 수치다. 8월 29일자 뉴욕타임스에 실린 기사 제목은 ‘인구 폭발, 꽝 아닌 펑 수준일 수도’였다.
그러나 축배를 들기 전에 이 수치를 잘 들여다 보자. 인구가 전반적으로 감소한다고 해도 파키스탄 라호레에 사느냐, 아니면 독일 프랑크푸르트에 살고 있느냐에 따라 차이가 있다.
전문가들은 인구가 감소하는 주요 원인으로 두 가지를 들고 있다. 첫째, 갈수록 더 많은 사람들이 시골보다는 도시에 산다는 점이다. 자녀가 대여섯으로 많다면 농장에 살면서 닭 치고 땔감 주워오기에는 좋겠지만, 슬럼가 원룸 아파트에 살기에는 분명 거추장스러울 것이다.
여성들 희생은 계속
둘째, 선진국과 개발도상국 양쪽에서의 여성의 역할 변화에 따른 것이다. 손재주 좋은 태국 여성이 방콕 외곽의 전자제품 조립 공장에 취직하면, 그 가족의 생활 수준은 급격히 향상된다. 이런 여성들은 시골 여성들에 비해 늦게 결혼할 확률이 높고, 대가족을 원하지도 않는다.
여성들이 더 많은 교육을 받게 되고, 취업률이 높아진 것도 결혼이 늦어지는 이유다. 여성의 평균 수명이 높아지면서 빨리 가정을 꾸려야 한다는 사회적 압력도 낮아졌다.
구시대적인 남성들이 득실거리는 사회일수록, 결혼에서 오는 이점이 거의 없다. 샐러리맨 남편은 아침 일찍 출근해서 밤늦게까지 사무실 혹은 술집에서 돌아오지 않는데, 왜 야심만만한 젊은 일본 여성이 직장을 포기하고 집에서 애나 봐야 하는가. 왜 러시아의 고학력 여성이 상스러운 알코올 중독자 남성과 결혼해야 하는가.
못사는 곳 인구증가
인구 증가 속도의 감소는 환경, 보건복지, 성비 등 전반적 측면에서 환영받고 있다. 그러나 생각해 봐야 할 몇 가지가 있다. 우선 고령 사회는 조심성이 많고 보수적이어서, 변화를 추구하려 하지 않는다. 외아들이나 외동딸밖에 없는 독일 부모가 자녀의 징병에 동의할 것인가. 러시아의 경우 매년 인구가 75만명씩 감소하고 있다. 지금 추세대로라면 현재 인구 1억4500만명이 2050년 1억500만명으로 감소하게 된다.
둘째, 북아프리카와 아시아 국가 대부분의 인구 성장률이 감소하고 있다. 하지만 예멘·중앙 아시아·중앙 아프리카·서아프리카·파키스탄 등은 인구가 계속 늘고 있다. 이 점을 간과하고 있는 것이다. 이런 국가들은 내전이나 여권 탄압, 환경 고갈, 극심한 빈곤으로 붕괴 위기에 놓일 것이다.
개발도상국의 출산율이 기적적으로 안정(여성 1명당 2.1명의 자녀 출산)된다고 해도, 5~20세 인구가 수십억명에 달하는 데서 오는 위험에 직면할 것이다. 저개발국 여성들의 열악한 환경을 국제 사회는 어떻게 구제할 것인가? 교육 수준이 낮고 직업도 없이 팔루자나 가자 지구에 넘쳐나는 수억명의 혈기 왕성한 성난 청년들은 어떻게 할 것인가.
(정리=이자연기자 achim@chosun.com )
WORLD POPULATION TRENDS: IS THE GLASS HALF-FULL OR HALF-EMPTY?
By Paul Kennedy
Late last month, readers of many newspapers and journals may have been pleasantly surprised to learn that the so-called ?opulation bomb?that has frightened demographic experts for decades is running out of its explosive power.
The United Nations Population Division, which provides figures on population trends each year, has recently been downsizing its estimates. With 6.3 billion folks on our planet right now, the U.N. agency predicts that the total world population will flatten out at around 9 billion by 2050.
That is not exactly good news for those who believe that we have already passed thresholds of the earth? sustainability. Still, that overall figure is considerably less than those offered a decade or so ago. No wonder this news got attention. As the headline of a major article in The New York Times on Aug. 29 declared: ?emographic ?omb?May Only Go ?op??
But before we break open the champagne bottles, let? take a closer look at the figures. The world is a complex place, and there are vast discrepancies, demographically speaking, between its many regions and even within regions. Overall, the trend is downward, but it makes a difference whether you are living in Lahore, Pakistan, or Frankfurt, Germany, as we shall see.
The main reason for the decline is simply that birthrates have been falling both in developed countries (though not all) and developing countries (though, again, not all). There is no single reason that explains the demographic transition, but the experts point to two main causes:
The first is that more and more families are now living in cramped cities rather than in the countryside. Having five or six children is useful if you live on a shanty farmstead and can have them mind the chickens or gather firewood; if you have moved into a one-room apartment in a slum neighborhood in, say, Sao Paulo, having a large family is a definite encumbrance. So, ironically, as the shanty-cities explode in size on the edges of capital cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia ?some already have 20 million inhabitants ?the fertility rates generally tumble.
A second cluster of reasons concerns the changed role of women within both developing and developed societies. If nimble-fingered Thai women and older girls get a job in a new electronics assembly plant outside Bangkok, family standards of living sharply increase. These women are likely to marry later than females in rural communities, and they don? want to have to manage a large family.
The rise in access of girls and women to secondary and even tertiary education, painfully slow though it may be in some countries, also reduces average family size because it, too, delays marriage and increases career options. Finally, as life expectancy for women rises in many lands, there is less pressure to have a family early.
Changes in women? career opportunities and lifestyles in the developed world are equally fascinating, and also have important demographic consequences. Educated young women nowadays have all sorts of opportunities that were denied to their grandmothers. If you work for a law firm, or run your own travel agency or other business, you have little time for raising a family. Or you may just want to stay single and have a good time until Mr. Right comes along, if ever.
Plus, there is little incentive to marriage if the assumptions of the men in your society remain antediluvian. Why should an ambitious Japanese young women give up her job and stay at home with kids when her salary-man husband departs for work early in the day and doesn? get back from the office (and karaoke bar) until late at night? Why should an educated Russian female want to marry a boorish and alcoholic man?
Though impossible to prove conclusively ?since all decisions on one? family size are by nature personal ones ?there seems to be a strong correlation between cultural assumptions about a woman? place in society and the national fertility rate, which is probably why rates have fallen less rapidly in the United States, Britain and Scandinavia than in Italy, Japan and Spain.
Is this slowing of the pace of the world? population growth to be welcomed? On the whole, yes ?for our environments, for health-care reasons, for the cause of gender equality. Yet there are several aspects to this story that ought to give us cause for pause:
The first is the demographic implosion in Europe, Japan and Russia. Environmentalists might welcome a much shrunken Germany and Italy, but there may be unintended consequences. An aged society is a cautious and conservative one, not likely to make the changes necessary to keep up with the 21st century.
More crudely, where will you find your armies? If German parents have four children and one is conscripted, that is one thing; but what happens when parents have only a single son or daughter? And how on earth will things turn out in Russia, which is losing 750,000 souls each year and is forecast to see its total population tumble from 145 million at present to around 105 million in 2050 if current trends are not arrested? Clearly, fertility rates can fall too far.
Secondly, the broad-brush picture of declining rates of population growth across North Africa and much of Asia (China, South Korea, India) misses the ?tandouts,?those places where the demographic projections point to further heavy increases: Yemen, Central Asia, Central and West Africa. Pakistan, with the same current population as Russia with 145 million, is forecast to reach 345 million (!) by 2050 ?if it hasn? broken apart by then.
In almost all these cases, the countries in question are collapsed or close-to-collapsing states suffering from internal conflicts, lack of women? rights, environmental exhaustion, and frightening levels of poverty, whether in the countryside or in the new shanty-towns. There is cause for worry here.
One final thought. Even if the fertility rates across the entire developing world miraculously stabilized today (the replacement fertility rate is 2.1 births per woman), we would still confront the challenges posed by the billion or more young people who are already born and are currently between the ages of 5 and 20. How, especially, can global society reach out and assist the disadvantaged girls and young women whose lives are far removed from their sisters in, say, Sweden and Canada? Or, equally daunting, how do we handle the hundreds of millions of angry, energetic young men, lacking education and jobs, and flooding the streets of Fallujah or the Gaza Strip?
There are no easy answers to such questions, and anyone who offers a single one is delusional. But it is worth reminding ourselves of these challenges lest we fall into the danger of glancing at newspaper headlines that tell us our global population nightmares are over but do not also note that some serious demographic problems remain to challenge us.
유엔의 인구분과는 최근 예측치를 하향조정해, 현재 63억명인 세계 인구가 2050년에는 90억명에 머물 것이라고 밝혔다.
10년 전 예측에 비하면 상당히 낮은 수치다. 8월 29일자 뉴욕타임스에 실린 기사 제목은 ‘인구 폭발, 꽝 아닌 펑 수준일 수도’였다.
그러나 축배를 들기 전에 이 수치를 잘 들여다 보자. 인구가 전반적으로 감소한다고 해도 파키스탄 라호레에 사느냐, 아니면 독일 프랑크푸르트에 살고 있느냐에 따라 차이가 있다.
전문가들은 인구가 감소하는 주요 원인으로 두 가지를 들고 있다. 첫째, 갈수록 더 많은 사람들이 시골보다는 도시에 산다는 점이다. 자녀가 대여섯으로 많다면 농장에 살면서 닭 치고 땔감 주워오기에는 좋겠지만, 슬럼가 원룸 아파트에 살기에는 분명 거추장스러울 것이다.
여성들 희생은 계속
둘째, 선진국과 개발도상국 양쪽에서의 여성의 역할 변화에 따른 것이다. 손재주 좋은 태국 여성이 방콕 외곽의 전자제품 조립 공장에 취직하면, 그 가족의 생활 수준은 급격히 향상된다. 이런 여성들은 시골 여성들에 비해 늦게 결혼할 확률이 높고, 대가족을 원하지도 않는다.
여성들이 더 많은 교육을 받게 되고, 취업률이 높아진 것도 결혼이 늦어지는 이유다. 여성의 평균 수명이 높아지면서 빨리 가정을 꾸려야 한다는 사회적 압력도 낮아졌다.
구시대적인 남성들이 득실거리는 사회일수록, 결혼에서 오는 이점이 거의 없다. 샐러리맨 남편은 아침 일찍 출근해서 밤늦게까지 사무실 혹은 술집에서 돌아오지 않는데, 왜 야심만만한 젊은 일본 여성이 직장을 포기하고 집에서 애나 봐야 하는가. 왜 러시아의 고학력 여성이 상스러운 알코올 중독자 남성과 결혼해야 하는가.
못사는 곳 인구증가
인구 증가 속도의 감소는 환경, 보건복지, 성비 등 전반적 측면에서 환영받고 있다. 그러나 생각해 봐야 할 몇 가지가 있다. 우선 고령 사회는 조심성이 많고 보수적이어서, 변화를 추구하려 하지 않는다. 외아들이나 외동딸밖에 없는 독일 부모가 자녀의 징병에 동의할 것인가. 러시아의 경우 매년 인구가 75만명씩 감소하고 있다. 지금 추세대로라면 현재 인구 1억4500만명이 2050년 1억500만명으로 감소하게 된다.
둘째, 북아프리카와 아시아 국가 대부분의 인구 성장률이 감소하고 있다. 하지만 예멘·중앙 아시아·중앙 아프리카·서아프리카·파키스탄 등은 인구가 계속 늘고 있다. 이 점을 간과하고 있는 것이다. 이런 국가들은 내전이나 여권 탄압, 환경 고갈, 극심한 빈곤으로 붕괴 위기에 놓일 것이다.
개발도상국의 출산율이 기적적으로 안정(여성 1명당 2.1명의 자녀 출산)된다고 해도, 5~20세 인구가 수십억명에 달하는 데서 오는 위험에 직면할 것이다. 저개발국 여성들의 열악한 환경을 국제 사회는 어떻게 구제할 것인가? 교육 수준이 낮고 직업도 없이 팔루자나 가자 지구에 넘쳐나는 수억명의 혈기 왕성한 성난 청년들은 어떻게 할 것인가.
(정리=이자연기자 achim@chosun.com )
WORLD POPULATION TRENDS: IS THE GLASS HALF-FULL OR HALF-EMPTY?
By Paul Kennedy
Late last month, readers of many newspapers and journals may have been pleasantly surprised to learn that the so-called ?opulation bomb?that has frightened demographic experts for decades is running out of its explosive power.
The United Nations Population Division, which provides figures on population trends each year, has recently been downsizing its estimates. With 6.3 billion folks on our planet right now, the U.N. agency predicts that the total world population will flatten out at around 9 billion by 2050.
That is not exactly good news for those who believe that we have already passed thresholds of the earth? sustainability. Still, that overall figure is considerably less than those offered a decade or so ago. No wonder this news got attention. As the headline of a major article in The New York Times on Aug. 29 declared: ?emographic ?omb?May Only Go ?op??
But before we break open the champagne bottles, let? take a closer look at the figures. The world is a complex place, and there are vast discrepancies, demographically speaking, between its many regions and even within regions. Overall, the trend is downward, but it makes a difference whether you are living in Lahore, Pakistan, or Frankfurt, Germany, as we shall see.
The main reason for the decline is simply that birthrates have been falling both in developed countries (though not all) and developing countries (though, again, not all). There is no single reason that explains the demographic transition, but the experts point to two main causes:
The first is that more and more families are now living in cramped cities rather than in the countryside. Having five or six children is useful if you live on a shanty farmstead and can have them mind the chickens or gather firewood; if you have moved into a one-room apartment in a slum neighborhood in, say, Sao Paulo, having a large family is a definite encumbrance. So, ironically, as the shanty-cities explode in size on the edges of capital cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia ?some already have 20 million inhabitants ?the fertility rates generally tumble.
A second cluster of reasons concerns the changed role of women within both developing and developed societies. If nimble-fingered Thai women and older girls get a job in a new electronics assembly plant outside Bangkok, family standards of living sharply increase. These women are likely to marry later than females in rural communities, and they don? want to have to manage a large family.
The rise in access of girls and women to secondary and even tertiary education, painfully slow though it may be in some countries, also reduces average family size because it, too, delays marriage and increases career options. Finally, as life expectancy for women rises in many lands, there is less pressure to have a family early.
Changes in women? career opportunities and lifestyles in the developed world are equally fascinating, and also have important demographic consequences. Educated young women nowadays have all sorts of opportunities that were denied to their grandmothers. If you work for a law firm, or run your own travel agency or other business, you have little time for raising a family. Or you may just want to stay single and have a good time until Mr. Right comes along, if ever.
Plus, there is little incentive to marriage if the assumptions of the men in your society remain antediluvian. Why should an ambitious Japanese young women give up her job and stay at home with kids when her salary-man husband departs for work early in the day and doesn? get back from the office (and karaoke bar) until late at night? Why should an educated Russian female want to marry a boorish and alcoholic man?
Though impossible to prove conclusively ?since all decisions on one? family size are by nature personal ones ?there seems to be a strong correlation between cultural assumptions about a woman? place in society and the national fertility rate, which is probably why rates have fallen less rapidly in the United States, Britain and Scandinavia than in Italy, Japan and Spain.
Is this slowing of the pace of the world? population growth to be welcomed? On the whole, yes ?for our environments, for health-care reasons, for the cause of gender equality. Yet there are several aspects to this story that ought to give us cause for pause:
The first is the demographic implosion in Europe, Japan and Russia. Environmentalists might welcome a much shrunken Germany and Italy, but there may be unintended consequences. An aged society is a cautious and conservative one, not likely to make the changes necessary to keep up with the 21st century.
More crudely, where will you find your armies? If German parents have four children and one is conscripted, that is one thing; but what happens when parents have only a single son or daughter? And how on earth will things turn out in Russia, which is losing 750,000 souls each year and is forecast to see its total population tumble from 145 million at present to around 105 million in 2050 if current trends are not arrested? Clearly, fertility rates can fall too far.
Secondly, the broad-brush picture of declining rates of population growth across North Africa and much of Asia (China, South Korea, India) misses the ?tandouts,?those places where the demographic projections point to further heavy increases: Yemen, Central Asia, Central and West Africa. Pakistan, with the same current population as Russia with 145 million, is forecast to reach 345 million (!) by 2050 ?if it hasn? broken apart by then.
In almost all these cases, the countries in question are collapsed or close-to-collapsing states suffering from internal conflicts, lack of women? rights, environmental exhaustion, and frightening levels of poverty, whether in the countryside or in the new shanty-towns. There is cause for worry here.
One final thought. Even if the fertility rates across the entire developing world miraculously stabilized today (the replacement fertility rate is 2.1 births per woman), we would still confront the challenges posed by the billion or more young people who are already born and are currently between the ages of 5 and 20. How, especially, can global society reach out and assist the disadvantaged girls and young women whose lives are far removed from their sisters in, say, Sweden and Canada? Or, equally daunting, how do we handle the hundreds of millions of angry, energetic young men, lacking education and jobs, and flooding the streets of Fallujah or the Gaza Strip?
There are no easy answers to such questions, and anyone who offers a single one is delusional. But it is worth reminding ourselves of these challenges lest we fall into the danger of glancing at newspaper headlines that tell us our global population nightmares are over but do not also note that some serious demographic problems remain to challenge us.
