0:00:00.357,0:00:03.452
I'm going to talk about religion.

0:00:03.452,0:00:09.474
But it's a broad and very delicate subject,

0:00:09.474,0:00:11.145
so I have to limit myself.

0:00:11.145,0:00:13.625
And therefore I will limit myself

0:00:13.625,0:00:17.665
to only talk about the links between religion and sexuality.

0:00:17.665,0:00:19.600
(Laughter)

0:00:19.600,0:00:22.160
This is a very serious Talk.

0:00:22.160,0:00:26.255
So I will talk of what I remember as the most wonderful.

0:00:26.255,0:00:28.600
It's when the young couple whisper,

0:00:28.600,0:00:31.311
"Tonight we are going to make a baby."

0:00:31.311,0:00:37.108
My Talk will be about the impact of religions

0:00:37.108,0:00:40.508
on the number of babies per woman.

0:00:40.508,0:00:43.095
This is indeed important,

0:00:43.095,0:00:44.472
because everyone understands

0:00:44.472,0:00:46.754
that there is some sort of limit

0:00:46.754,0:00:49.320
on how many people we can be on this planet.

0:00:49.320,0:00:51.775
And there are some people

0:00:51.775,0:00:55.348
who say that the world population is growing like this --

0:00:55.348,0:00:57.155
three billion in 1960,

0:00:57.155,0:00:59.794
seven billion just last year --

0:00:59.794,0:01:01.340
and it will continue to grow

0:01:01.340,0:01:05.120
because there are religions that stop women from having few babies,

0:01:05.120,0:01:06.800
and it may continue like this.

0:01:06.800,0:01:10.578
To what extent are these people right?

0:01:10.578,0:01:16.305
When I was born there was less than one billion children in the world,

0:01:16.305,0:01:19.680
and today, 2000, there's almost two billion.

0:01:19.680,0:01:21.520
What has happened since,

0:01:21.520,0:01:24.877
and what do the experts predict will happen

0:01:24.877,0:01:27.360
with the number of children during this century?

0:01:27.360,0:01:29.978
This is a quiz. What do you think?

0:01:29.978,0:01:33.188
Do you think it will decrease to one billion?

0:01:33.188,0:01:37.708
Will it remain the same and be two billion by the end of the century?

0:01:37.708,0:01:41.425
Will the number of children increase each year up to 15 years,

0:01:41.425,0:01:43.160
or will it continue in the same fast rate

0:01:43.160,0:01:45.480
and be four billion children up there?

0:01:45.480,0:01:48.720
I will tell you by the end of my speech.

0:01:48.720,0:01:53.972
But now, what does religion have to do with it?

0:01:53.972,0:01:56.705
When you want to classify religion,

0:01:56.705,0:01:58.728
it's more difficult than you think.

0:01:58.728,0:02:01.932
You go to Wikipedia and the first map you find is this.

0:02:01.932,0:02:07.465
It divides the world into Abrahamic religions and Eastern religion,

0:02:07.465,0:02:09.237
but that's not detailed enough.

0:02:09.237,0:02:13.046
So we went on and we looked in Wikipedia, we found this map.

0:02:13.046,0:02:17.692
But that subdivides Christianity, Islam and Buddhism

0:02:17.692,0:02:19.295
into many subgroups,

0:02:19.295,0:02:20.800
which was too detailed.

0:02:20.800,0:02:24.218
Therefore at Gapminder we made our own map,

0:02:24.218,0:02:25.868
and it looks like this.

0:02:25.868,0:02:29.548
Each country's a bubble.

0:02:29.548,0:02:33.418
The size is the population -- big China, big India here.

0:02:33.418,0:02:36.702
And the color now is the majority religion.

0:02:36.702,0:02:39.671
It's the religion where more than 50 percent of the people

0:02:39.671,0:02:41.972
say that they belong.

0:02:41.972,0:02:45.797
It's Eastern religion in India and China and neighboring Asian countries.

0:02:45.797,0:02:48.200
Islam is the majority religion

0:02:48.200,0:02:52.160
all the way from the Atlantic Ocean across the Middle East,

0:02:52.160,0:02:54.763
Southern Europe and through Asia

0:02:54.763,0:02:57.000
all the way to Indonesia.

0:02:57.000,0:02:59.917
That's where we find Islamic majority.

0:02:59.917,0:03:04.720
And Christian majority religions we see in these countries. They are blue.

0:03:04.720,0:03:07.960
And that is most countries in America and Europe,

0:03:07.960,0:03:12.415
many countries in Africa and a few in Asia.

0:03:12.415,0:03:14.680
The white here are countries which cannot be classified,

0:03:14.680,0:03:17.720
because one religion does not reach 50 percent

0:03:17.720,0:03:21.077
or there is doubt about the data or there's some other reason.

0:03:21.077,0:03:22.160
So we were careful with that.

0:03:22.160,0:03:26.695
So bear with our simplicity now when I take you over to this shot.

0:03:26.695,0:03:28.708
This is in 1960.

0:03:28.708,0:03:32.240
And now I show the number of babies per woman here:

0:03:32.240,0:03:34.880
two, four or six --

0:03:34.880,0:03:37.240
many babies, few babies.

0:03:37.240,0:03:40.698
And here the income per person in comparable dollars.

0:03:40.698,0:03:44.295
The reason for that is that many people say you have to get rich first

0:03:44.295,0:03:45.965
before you get few babies.

0:03:45.965,0:03:49.597
So low income here, high income there.

0:03:49.597,0:03:51.235
And indeed in 1960,

0:03:51.235,0:03:53.326
you had to be a rich Christian to have few babies.

0:03:53.326,0:03:55.231
The exception was Japan.

0:03:55.231,0:03:59.483
Japan here was regarded as an exception.

0:03:59.483,0:04:01.511
Otherwise it was only Christian countries.

0:04:01.511,0:04:03.720
But there was also many Christian countries

0:04:03.720,0:04:06.292
that had six to seven babies per woman.

0:04:06.292,0:04:10.769
But they were in Latin America or they were in Africa.

0:04:10.769,0:04:15.942
And countries with Islam as the majority religion,

0:04:15.942,0:04:19.880
all of them almost had six to seven children per woman,

0:04:19.880,0:04:22.520
irregardless of the income level.

0:04:22.520,0:04:27.240
And all the Eastern religions except Japan have the same level.

0:04:27.240,0:04:29.160
Now let's see what has happened in the world.

0:04:29.160,0:04:31.080
I start the world, and here we go.

0:04:31.080,0:04:34.298
Now 1962 -- can you see they're getting a little richer,

0:04:34.298,0:04:36.972
but the number of babies per woman is falling.

0:04:36.972,0:04:39.145
Look at China. They're falling fairly fast.

0:04:39.145,0:04:43.908
And all of the Muslim majority countries across the income are coming down,

0:04:43.908,0:04:48.871
as do the Christian majority countries in the middle income range.

0:04:48.871,0:04:51.400
And when we enter into this century,

0:04:51.400,0:04:54.760
you'll find that more than half of mankind down here.

0:04:54.760,0:04:59.686
And by 2010, we are actually 80 percent of humans

0:04:59.686,0:05:02.200
who live in countries with about two children per woman.

0:05:02.200,0:05:06.000
(Applause)

0:05:06.000,0:05:10.760
It's a quite amazing development which has happened.

0:05:10.760,0:05:11.600
(Applause)

0:05:11.600,0:05:16.077
And these are countries from United States here,

0:05:16.077,0:05:18.238
with $40,000 per capita,

0:05:18.238,0:05:21.185
France, Russia, Iran,

0:05:21.185,0:05:24.837
Mexico, Turkey, Algeria,

0:05:24.837,0:05:27.062
Indonesia, India

0:05:27.062,0:05:29.791
and all the way to Bangladesh and Vietnam,

0:05:29.791,0:05:33.834
which has less than five percent of the income per person of the United States

0:05:33.834,0:05:36.560
and the same amount of babies per woman.

0:05:36.560,0:05:39.560
I can tell you that the data on the number of children per woman

0:05:39.560,0:05:42.080
is surprisingly good in all countries.

0:05:42.080,0:05:44.258
We get that from the census data.

0:05:44.258,0:05:47.020
It's not one of these statistics which is very doubtful.

0:05:47.020,0:05:48.480
So what we can conclude

0:05:48.480,0:05:51.738
is you don't have to get rich to have few children.

0:05:51.738,0:05:53.818
It has happened across the world.

0:05:53.818,0:05:56.658
And then when we look at religions,

0:05:56.658,0:05:59.185
we can see that the Eastern religions,

0:05:59.185,0:06:02.000
indeed there's not one single country with a majority of that religion

0:06:02.000,0:06:04.080
that has more than three children.

0:06:04.080,0:06:07.440
Whereas with Islam as a majority religion and Christianity,

0:06:07.440,0:06:10.040
you see countries all the way.

0:06:10.040,0:06:11.080
But there's no major difference.

0:06:11.080,0:06:14.843
There's no major difference between these religions.

0:06:14.843,0:06:17.486
There is a difference with income.

0:06:17.486,0:06:21.600
The countries which have many babies per woman here,

0:06:21.600,0:06:23.532
they have quite low income.

0:06:23.532,0:06:26.963
Most of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

0:06:26.963,0:06:29.040
But there are also countries here

0:06:29.040,0:06:33.080
like Guatemala, like Papua New Guinea,

0:06:33.080,0:06:35.640
like Yemen and Afghanistan.

0:06:35.640,0:06:43.578
Many think that Afghanistan here and Congo, which have suffered severe conflicts,

0:06:43.578,0:06:46.632
that they don't have fast population growth.

0:06:46.632,0:06:48.409
It's the other way around.

0:06:48.409,0:06:52.302
In the world today, it's the countries that have the highest mortality rates

0:06:52.302,0:06:54.538
that have the fastest population growth.

0:06:54.538,0:06:58.095
Because the death of a child is compensated by one more child.

0:06:58.095,0:07:01.172
These countries have six children per woman.

0:07:01.172,0:07:05.566
They have a sad death rate of one to two children per woman.

0:07:05.566,0:07:09.385
But 30 years from now, Afghanistan will go from 30 million to 60 million.

0:07:09.385,0:07:11.838
Congo will go from 60 to 120.

0:07:11.838,0:07:15.683
That's where we have the fast population growth.

0:07:15.683,0:07:20.120
And many think that all these countries are stagnant, but they are not.

0:07:20.120,0:07:23.542
Let me compare Senegal, a Muslim dominated country,

0:07:23.542,0:07:26.000
with a Christian dominated country, Ghana.

0:07:26.000,0:07:29.597
I take them backwards here to their independence,

0:07:29.597,0:07:33.280
when they were up here in the beginning of the 1960s.

0:07:33.280,0:07:35.040
Just look what they have done.

0:07:35.040,0:07:36.837
It's an amazing improvement,

0:07:36.837,0:07:39.920
from seven children per woman,

0:07:39.920,0:07:41.600
they've gone all the way down to between four and five.

0:07:41.600,0:07:43.280
It's a tremendous improvement.

0:07:43.280,0:07:44.920
So what does it take?

0:07:44.920,0:07:48.040
Well we know quite well what is needed in these countries.

0:07:48.040,0:07:50.560
You need to have children to survive.

0:07:50.560,0:07:53.942
You need to get out of the deepest poverty

0:07:53.942,0:07:57.228
so children are not of importance for work in the family.

0:07:57.228,0:07:59.760
You need to have access to some family planning.

0:07:59.760,0:08:04.400
And you need the fourth factor, which perhaps is the most important factor.

0:08:04.400,0:08:07.000
But let me illustrate that fourth factor

0:08:07.000,0:08:09.117
by looking at Qatar.

0:08:09.117,0:08:13.040
Here we have Qatar today, and there we have Bangladesh today.

0:08:13.040,0:08:17.169
If I take these countries back to the years of their independence,

0:08:17.169,0:08:20.240
which is almost the same year -- '71, '72 --

0:08:20.240,0:08:24.114
it's a quite amazing development which has happened.

0:08:24.114,0:08:25.920
Look at Bangladesh and Qatar.

0:08:25.920,0:08:28.440
With so different incomes, it's almost the same drop

0:08:28.440,0:08:30.800
in number of babies per woman.

0:08:30.800,0:08:33.295
And what is the reason in Qatar?

0:08:33.295,0:08:34.954
Well I do as I always do.

0:08:34.954,0:08:38.726
I went to the statistical authority of Qatar, to their webpage --

0:08:38.726,0:08:40.857
It's a very good webpage. I recommend it --

0:08:40.857,0:08:45.163
and I looked up -- oh yeah, you can have lots of fun here --

0:08:45.163,0:08:50.800
and provided free of charge, I found Qatar's social trends.

0:08:50.800,0:08:52.960
Very interesting. Lots to read.

0:08:52.960,0:08:58.332
I found fertility at birth, and I looked at total fertility rate per woman.

0:08:58.332,0:09:01.883
These are the scholars and experts in the government agency in Qatar,

0:09:01.883,0:09:04.538
and they say the most important factors are:

0:09:04.538,0:09:06.480
"Increased age at first marriage,

0:09:06.480,0:09:09.505
increased educational level of Qatari woman

0:09:09.520,0:09:12.818
and more women integrated in the labor force."

0:09:12.818,0:09:16.560
I couldn't agree more. Science couldn't agree more.

0:09:16.560,0:09:19.077
This is a country that indeed has gone through

0:09:19.077,0:09:22.028
a very, very interesting modernization.

0:09:22.028,0:09:24.560
So what it is, is these four:

0:09:24.560,0:09:28.320
Children should survive, children shouldn't be needed for work,

0:09:28.320,0:09:31.222
women should get education and join the labor force

0:09:31.222,0:09:32.880
and family planning should be accessible.

0:09:32.880,0:09:35.806
Now look again at this.

0:09:35.806,0:09:39.175
The average number of children in the world

0:09:39.175,0:09:41.520
is like in Colombia -- it's 2.4 today.

0:09:41.520,0:09:45.634
There are countries up here which are very poor.

0:09:45.634,0:09:49.338
And that's where family planning, better child survival is needed.

0:09:49.338,0:09:53.372
I strongly recommend Melinda Gates's last TEDTalk.

0:09:53.372,0:09:58.831
And here down there are many countries which are less than two children per woman.

0:09:58.831,0:10:02.397
So when I go back now to give you the answer of the quiz,

0:10:02.428,0:10:03.985
it's two.

0:10:03.985,0:10:05.760
We have reached peak child.

0:10:05.760,0:10:09.403
The number of children is not growing any longer in the world.

0:10:09.403,0:10:11.395
We are still debating peak oil,

0:10:11.395,0:10:13.480
but we have definitely reached peak child.

0:10:13.480,0:10:17.049
And the world population will stop growing.

0:10:17.049,0:10:18.720
The United Nations Population Division has said

0:10:18.720,0:10:21.052
it will stop growing at 10 billion.

0:10:21.052,0:10:25.354
But why do they grow if the number of children doesn't grow?

0:10:25.354,0:10:27.400
Well I will show you here.

0:10:27.400,0:10:31.852
I will use these card boxes in which your notebooks came.

0:10:31.852,0:10:34.763
They are quite useful for educational purposes.

0:10:34.763,0:10:38.594
Each card box is one billion people.

0:10:38.594,0:10:41.000
And there are two billion children in the world.

0:10:41.000,0:10:48.132
There are two billion young people between 15 and 30.

0:10:48.132,0:10:49.602
These are rounded numbers.

0:10:49.602,0:10:54.628
Then there is one billion between 30 and 45,

0:10:54.628,0:10:58.471
almost one between 45 and 60.

0:10:58.471,0:11:00.095
And then it's my box.

0:11:00.095,0:11:02.120
This is me -- 60-plus.

0:11:02.120,0:11:03.528
We are here on top.

0:11:03.528,0:11:08.852
So what will happen now is what we call the big fill-up.

0:11:08.852,0:11:12.502
You can see that it's like three billion missing here.

0:11:12.502,0:11:15.240
They are not missing because they've died; they were never born.

0:11:15.240,0:11:20.917
Because before 1980, there were much fewer people born

0:11:20.917,0:11:23.043
than there were during the last 30 years.

0:11:23.043,0:11:26.828
So what will happen now is quite straightforward.

0:11:26.828,0:11:29.625
The old, sadly, we will die.

0:11:29.625,0:11:34.280
The rest of you, you will grow older and you will get two billion children.

0:11:34.280,0:11:36.288
Then the old will die.

0:11:36.288,0:11:40.588
The rest will grow older and get two billion children.

0:11:40.588,0:11:46.080
And then again the old will die and you will get two billion children.

0:11:46.080,0:11:48.949
(Applause)

0:11:48.949,0:11:51.428
This is the great fill-up.

0:11:51.428,0:11:53.938
It's inevitable.

0:11:53.938,0:11:58.000
And can you see that this increase took place

0:11:58.000,0:12:01.542
without life getting longer and without adding children?

0:12:01.542,0:12:07.508
Religion has very little to do with the number of babies per woman.

0:12:07.508,0:12:10.977
All the religions in the world are fully capable

0:12:10.977,0:12:15.271
to maintain their values and adapt to this new world.

0:12:15.271,0:12:21.385
And we will be just 10 billion in this world,

0:12:21.385,0:12:24.969
if the poorest people get out of poverty,

0:12:24.969,0:12:28.142
their children survive, they get access to family planning.

0:12:28.142,0:12:30.026
That is needed.

0:12:30.042,0:12:35.034
But it's inevitable that we will be two to three billion more.

0:12:35.034,0:12:38.969
So when you discuss and when you plan

0:12:38.969,0:12:42.372
for the resources and the energy needed for the future,

0:12:42.372,0:12:44.705
for human beings on this planet,

0:12:44.705,0:12:46.554
you have to plan for 10 billion.

0:12:46.554,0:12:47.920
Thank you very much.

0:12:47.920,0:12:55.098
(Applause)