The Plight of Girls in an Ever-More Populous India

At the moment, China and India have nearly similar population totals. The new UN Population Division projections show China increasing from its current 1.34 billion to about 1.38 billion in 2035 and then declining in population size after that, dipping below a billion by the end of the century. By contrast, they project that India could increase from its current 1.22 billion to 1.72 billion in 2060 and then slowly drop after that, to 1.55 billion by century's end. Wrapped up in this stupendous population momentum is the continuing low status of females in India, as reported by the Associated Press in a story triggered by the latest census data in India that reveal a sex ratio at the young ages that is heavily skewed toward males. 

They point to a painful reality revealed in India's most recent census: Despite a booming economy and big cities full of luxury cars and glittering malls, the country is failing its girls.

Early results show India has 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys. A decade ago, many were horrified when the ratio was 927 to 1,000.

The discrimination happens through abortions of female fetuses and sheer neglect of young girls, despite years of high-profile campaigns to address the issue. So serious is the problem that it's illegal for medical personnel to reveal the gender of an unborn fetus, although evidence suggests the ban is widely circumvented.

"If a woman has a boy, for a month she will be looked after. If she has a girl, she'll be back in the fields in three days," says Sudha Misra, a local social worker.

An exhausted mother who faces neglect, poor nutrition and blame for producing a daughter is likely to pass on that neglect, social workers say. For an infant, that can mean the difference between life and death.

New UN Projections Suggest Higher Population by Mid-Century

The United Nations Population Division released its latest round of population projections today, and they suggest that by 2050 the world's population may reach 9.3 billion--higher than the 9.1 billion that they had projected two years ago. The changes are due both to fewer deaths and more births than previously expected. The new projections also suggest that the world's population could reach 10 billion by the end of this century, if the current trends do not change. In particular, as we continue to improve health around the world (thus lowering the number of deaths), this must be offset by increasingly fewer births. As Reuters reports:

Outliers in Family Demography

The killing of Osama bin Laden has resurrected the very unusual circumstances of his family life. In the first place:

Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire construction magnate Mohamed bin Laden. 

In fact, Wikipedia suggests that Osama bin Laden's father had 54 children with 22 different wives. It is almost impossible to contemplate this constant turnover and turmoil of wives and births of children. Indeed, it is said that Osama was the 17th child, and that his mother was the 10th wife, yet by the time Osama's father was killed in a plane crash ten years after Osama's birth, his father had married (and presumably also divorced--since Islam only allows four wives at a time), an additional 12 wives who bore him an additional 37 children. Osama's mother was a Syrian-born woman who was divorced by Osama's father shortly after his birth. She remarried and had additional children.
With respect to the family that Osama created, it is reported that: