Population 10 Billion by Dorling Danny

Author:Dorling, Danny
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780338781
Publisher: Constable & Robinson

No marriage city

Pessimism wins the headlines and book contracts, but has often been shown to be mistaken . . . or luddite . . . Since authors owe it to their readers to declare their dispositions, I am like René Dubos, a ‘despairing optimist’.

L. T. Evans, plant physiologist, CSIRO, 199848

The writer of these words was referring to food and the despair that there might not be enough, but his words could as easily be applied to many other aspects of human life. He was despairing because other people may not be optimistic enough to do what they need to do to ensure enough food for all, and because he knows that if they become too optimistic, they may then become complacent. He remains an optimist because he sees no fundamental impediment to feeding us all.

A pessimistic view of the rise of city living might see its implication being increased loneliness and singlehood, the subject of this section. Should you wish, you could see the decline of marriage, that traditional village social structure, as spreading like a curse across the planet. An optimist might see great hope in humans no longer being forced to form identical pair-bond contracts that controlled the behaviour of so many of their ancestors. A despairing optimist might say that we need to consider the down side to greater freedom too, but that all might turn out OK in the end.

From 153 million in 1996 to 277 million in 2011, the number of people living alone globally has increased by 81 per cent in just 15 years. At the same time, the total world population grew by ‘just’ 20 per cent and the world urban population by 39 per cent. By 2011, in the United States alone, there were some 33 million lone adult households, making up a quarter of all households and a seventh of all people.49 More and more people are living in cities; more and more of them are staying single, or at least childless.

Interestingly, despite women being more likely to end up with the children after divorce or separation, these solo dwellers are slightly more likely to be women than men. There are now nine women living alone in the United States for every seven men living on their own. This is not because demographic growth in the USA has been mostly about more people being elderly, and the sex disparity is only slightly about so many men in the USA now living communally in the armed forces and/or prison.

Of those now living alone in the US, the ‘majority, more than 16 million, are middle-aged adults between the ages of 35 and 64. The elderly account for about 11 million of the total. Young adults between 18 and 34 number more than 5 million, compared with 500,000 in 1950, making them the fastest-growing segment of the solo-dwelling population. Unlike their predecessors, people who live alone today cluster together in metropolitan areas.’50 All these are further signs that future population slowdown might take place

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